The Impact OF Exposure TO SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY ENGINEERING MATHEMATICS CAREERS
Peggy Ostrander, Salt River Project, 8th grade Advance Science
1College
of Education, University of Arizona, Stapley Junior High
Introduction
STEM Career Questionnaire- Likert-Scale (combined all “disagree”,
“undecided” and “agree” for each category)
Findings
The Next Generation Science Standards have additional
recommendations on integrating the STEM content into science with a
new component of engineering. The students need to be able to
incorporate cooperative learning and technology skills needed in the
workplace. Additionally, students need to incorporate STEM knowledge
into a career and determine what those careers would be.
DAST Data (based on commonalities)
Students are more interested in having a STEM career.
Connection to Industry
Figure 1
During my time as a teacher intern at SRP, I have learned a great deal on
how industry works and what my students need to be better prepared for
their future STEM careers. In my internship at SRP, I have observed that
people work together on projects and share their work with each other
through a program called SharePoint. My students used Google Docs to
share their work, similar to the collaboration I observed in industry. As
industry solved problems through committees and shared work, so did
the students with gathering information and then presented it as a group.
Question
To what extent did my 8th grade advanced science students' interest in
and knowledge of STEM careers change as a result of being engaged in
a cooperative research activity that incorporates job skills, technologies,
and practices of STEM professionals?
Investigation
I focused on skills, practices, and technologies needed in the workplace
by having my students complete tasks in groups while researching
STEM careers.
• 121 8th grade advanced science students
• Draw-a-Scientist (DAST)
• STEM Semantics survey
• STEM Career Questionnaire
• Career feedback forms
Examples of student DAST
Students showed a diversity of understanding over the
year of what a STEM professional does. Students grew
from a picture of a science lab to a specific STEM
profession.
Figure 2
Career Feedback Form (coded for responses)
 Students drew all parts of STEM with dividing up their paper
(Figure 1)
 Students wrote down specific career then drew it (Figure 2)
 Only symbols, when asked “STEM is everything” (Figure 3)
STEM Semantics Survey, Likert-Scale 1-7
(combined all negative, neutral, and positive to show
incidence)
Figure 3
Students’ interest in all of
the STEM areas increased,
and negative responses
decreased.
Students want a STEM career where they can apply the content in a
hands on fashion.
 Students were concerned with safety, amount of salary and the amount of
schooling as being negative factors about a career
 Students indicated high salary as a high priority for a career
 The two biggest gains were in “hands on” and the “specific content of that
career”
 Amount of post-positive
rankings were higher, except
in engineering
 Math negative ranks
decreased and the postpositive increased
 Students want an interesting
career over a fun one.
• “It would be cool to modify genes”
• “I am very interested in becoming
a Nuclear Engineer”
• “Fireworks chemists is the most
interesting because of what you
have to know!”
Students’ interested changed
through the exposure to varied
STEM content and STEM
careers.
1st Quarter
AugustOctober
o DAST
(n=121)
o Pre-Surveys
(n=121)
o Genetic
Career
(n=121)
2nd Quarter
OctoberDecember
o Physics
Career
(n=121)
3rd Quarter
JanuaryMarch
o Chemistry
career
(n=121)
4th Quarter
March-May
o Research
Career
(n=121)
o DAST
(n=121)
o Post-Surveys
(n=121)
 Overall, students used
“disagree” less in the
post-survey.
 33% more students
answered “agree” in
the post-survey in
regards to obtaining a
STEM degree
 48% more students
answered “agree” in
the post-survey in
regards to
student/family support
 Overall negative rankings
decreased
 Overall positive rankings
increased
Plan of Action




Continue with career projects.
Have more STEM professionals in my class on a regular basis.
Have the students reflect on their group work.
Make a database for all presentations for students to see a variety of STEM
careers and what they entail.
 Incorporate more math content in STEM careers, so students do not see it as
separate career.
References:
Chambers, D. W. (1983). Stereotypic images of the scientist: The Draw a Scientist Test. Science Education, 67, 255-265.
Tyler-Wood, T. K., Knezek, G., & Christensen, R. (2010). Instruments for assessing interest in STEM content and careers. Journal of Technology
and Teacher Education, 18(2), 341-363.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the funders or partners.
The Teachers in Industry Program is administered by the College of Education at the University of Arizona through funding provided
Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold Foundation through 100Kin10.