| 1. |
- Buckley, Jeffrey, 1992-, et al.
(författare)
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The impact of country of schooling and gender on secondary school students' conceptions of and interest in becoming an engineer in Ireland, Kenya and Sweden
- 2023
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Ingår i: International Journal of STEM education. - : Springer Nature. - 2196-7822. ; 10:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BackgroundGiven the disparities in gender representation, efforts are needed to make engineering education more inclusive and attractive to young people. It is important that those entering engineering education are making this decision with sufficient understanding of what it means to be an engineer. This study explored how lower secondary education students from Ireland (n = 435), Kenya (n = 436), and Sweden (n = 361) stereotyped engineers, and their interest in becoming an engineer was examined. The Draw an Engineer Test was used to achieve this, and ordinal and logistic regression analyses were conducted to compare the effects of students' genders and country of schooling on the genders and concepts of their drawn engineers, and on their interest in becoming an engineer in the future.ResultsA Sankey diagram illustrated significant complexity in the interaction between conceptions of engineering work and fields of engineering. Chi-square tests of association were used to examine the association between students depicting an engineer as either the same or a different gender to themselves and their interest in becoming an engineer. The results of these and the regression analyses indicate that young people's gender explains more variance in the gender of drawn engineers and the country they are studying in explains more variance in their conception of engineers. However, most variance was explained when both students' gender and country of study were considered together. Further, particularly for young females, drawing a female engineer as opposed to a male engineer was positively associated with increased interest in becoming an engineer.ConclusionsThere is a need to develop a greater understanding of engineering in young people to ensure they have sufficient information to make decisions regarding related educational pursuits. National-level attempts are needed to present accurate depictions of engineering, and effort needs to be invested in ensuring that young females can identify as engineers. Higher educational access needs to be considered in future work examining future career interests.
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| 2. |
- Gonsalves, Allison J., et al.
(författare)
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"It’s not my dream, actually" : students' identity work across figured worlds of construction engineering in Sweden
- 2019
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Ingår i: International Journal of STEM education. - : Springer. - 2196-7822. ; 6:13, s. 1-17
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Research in engineering education has pointed to the need for new engineers to develop a broader skillsetwith an emphasis on “softer” social skills. However, there remains strong tensions in the identity work that engineersmust engage in to balance the technical demands of the discipline with the new emphasis on heterogeneous skills(Faulkner, Social Studies of Science 37:331–356, 2007). This study explores how three unconventional students experiencethese tensions in the final year of their construction engineering program, and as they move in and out of workplacefield experiences.Results: Using a figured worlds framework (Holland et al., Identity and agency in cultural worlds, 1998), we explore thedominant subject positions for students in construction engineering classroom and workplaces in a 3-year Swedishengineering program. Results demonstrate that dominant subject positions for construction engineers can troublestudents’ identity work as they move across classroom and workplace settings.Conclusions: This study expands our knowledge of the complexity of students’ identity work across classroom andworkplace settings. The emergence of classroom and workplace masculinities that shape the dominant subject positionsavailable to students are shown to trouble the identity work that students engage in as they move across these learningspaces. We examine students’ identity strategies that contribute to their persistence through the field. Finally, we discussimplications for teaching and research in light of students’ movements across these educational contexts.
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| 3. |
- Hallström, Jonas, et al.
(författare)
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Authentic STEM education through modelling : An international Delphi study
- 2023
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Ingår i: International Journal of STEM education. - : Springer Nature. - 2196-7822. ; 10:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The literature asserts that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education needs to be authentic. Although models and modelling provide a basis from which to increase authenticity by bridging the STEM disciplines, the idea of authentic STEM education remains challenging to define. In response, the aim of this study is to identify consensus on significant elements of authentic STEM education through models and modelling. Views were gathered anonymously over three rounds of questions with an expert panel. Responses were subjected to a multimethod analysis that pursued identification, consensus, and stability in the panel’s revealed propositions and themes around authentic STEM education through modelling.The panel reached high consensus concerning the potential of STEM education to support learning across traditional subject borders through authentic problem solving. The panel also consented that modelling is indispensable for achieving real-world relevance in STEM education, and that model-based integrated STEM education approaches provide opportunities for authentic problem solving. Furthermore, results showed that integrating individual STEM subjects during teaching, in terms of including disciplinary knowledge and skills, requires specialised competence. Here, technology and engineering subjects tended to implicitly underpin communicated teaching activities aimed at STEM integration.The panellists stress that STEM disciplines should be taught collaboratively at the same time as they are not in favour of STEM as a subject of its own but rather as a cooperation that maintains the integrity of each individual subject. Many respondents mentioned integrated STEM projects that included modelling and engineering design, although they were not specifically labelled as engineering projects. Thus, real-world STEM education scenarios are often viewed as being primarily technology and engineering based. The panel responses also implicate a need for multiple definitions of authenticity for different educational levels because a great deal of uncertainty surrounding authenticity seems to originate from the concept implying different meanings for different STEM audiences. These international Delphi findings can potentially inform integrated STEM classroom interventions, teacher education development, educational resource and curriculum design.
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| 4. |
- Hallström, Jonas, 1969-, et al.
(författare)
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Commentary: Models and modelling for authentic STEM education: reinforcing the argument
- 2019
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Ingår i: International Journal of STEM education. - : Springer. - 2196-7822. ; 6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This commentary expands the notion that models and modelling can be used as a basis to foster an integrated and authentic STEM education and STEM literacy. The aim is to synthesize key publications that document relationships between authenticity, models and modelling, and STEM education. The implications of the synthesis are as follows: authenticity must be viewed as a cornerstone of STEM literacy; models and modelling processes can bridge the gap between STEM disciplines through authentic practices; models and modelling should be used as a means to promote STEM literacy and the transfer of knowledge and skills between contexts, both in and out of the STEM disciplines; modelling activities can serve as a meaningful route toward authentic STEM education; teaching authentic modelling processes must be rooted in explicit and tested frameworks that are based on the practice of the STEM disciplines; and, authentic STEM education should be driven by developing interaction between STEM subjects in parallel with maintaining the integrity of each subject. If this vision is to be reinforced, it is of utmost importance that implementing any model-based authentic educational activities are underpinned by evidence-based frameworks and recommendations for teaching practice. It is therefore imperative that intended model-based pedagogies for STEM education classrooms are further researched, in order to contribute to an integrated STEM literacy.
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| 5. |
- Knekta, Eva, Doktor, 1975-, et al.
(författare)
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Measuring university students' interest in biology : evaluation of an instrument targeting Hidi and Renninger's individual interest
- 2020
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Ingår i: International Journal of STEM education. - : Springer. - 2196-7822. ; 7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Boosting students’ disciplinary interest has long been considered an important mechanism to increase student success and retention in STEM education. Yet, interest is a complex construct and can mean different things to different people, and many of the existing interest questionnaires do not identify a specific theoretical framework underlying their items. To demonstrate that curricular interventions targeting students’ interest are effective, educators need a theoretically based instrument to measure interest. The aim of this study was to develop an instrument measuring undergraduate students’ interest in the discipline of biology and collect initial validity evidence supporting the proposed use. The instrument structure is based on Hidi and Renninger’s (Educational Psychologist 41:111–127, 2006) conceptualization of individual interest, and the intended use is to evaluate changes in the biology interests of the US undergraduate students pursuing STEM degrees. To provide evidence of validity, the instrument was completed by 446 biology majors and 489 non-biology majors at two R1 universities. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were applied to evaluate the internal structure of the instrument.Results: The final three-factor instrument supported by these analyses includes 6 items representing positive feelings towards biology, 5 items representing personal value of biology, and 8 items representing reengagement in biology-related activities. Measurement invariance across biology and non-biology majors was established and subsequent comparisons of these populations demonstrated that biology majors report significantly higher positive feelings, personal value, and reengagement in biology-related activities compared to non-biology majors.Conclusions: The study findings support the use of the instrument to gain a broad understanding of students’ individual interest in biology. With minor adaptions, the instrument could also be evaluated for use in other STEM disciplines and for use by other populations.
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| 6. |
- Star, Jon, et al.
(författare)
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Exploring students’ procedural flexibility in three countries
- 2022
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Ingår i: International Journal of STEM Education. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2196-7822. ; 9:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background In this cross-national study, Spanish, Finnish, and Swedish middle and high school students’ procedural flexibility was examined, with the specific intent of determining whether and how students’ equation-solving accuracy and flexibility varied by country, age, and/or academic track. The 791 student participants were asked to solve twelve linear equations, provide multiple strategies for each equation, and select the best strategy from among their own strategies. Results Our results indicate that knowledge and use of the standard algorithm for solving linear equations is quite widespread across students in all three countries, but that there exists substantial within-country variation as well as between-country variation in students’ reliance on standard vs. situationally appropriate strategies. In addition, we found correlations between equation-solving accuracy and students’ flexibility in all three countries but to different degrees. Conclusions Although it is increasingly recognized as an important construct of interest, there are many aspects of mathematical flexibility that are not well-understood. Particularly lacking in the literature on flexibility are studies that explore similarities and differences in students’ repertoire of strategies for solving algebra problems across countries with different educational systems and curricula. This study yielded important insights about flexibility and can push the field to explore the extent that within- and between-country differences in flexibility can be linked to differences in countries’ educational systems, teaching practices, and/or cultural norms around mathematics teaching and learning.
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| 7. |
- Venkat, Hamsa
(författare)
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Mathematical practices and mathematical modes of enquiry: same or different?
- 2015
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Ingår i: International Journal of STEM education. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2196-7822. ; 2:1, s. 1-12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BackgroundIn this paper, I share a case study of a teacher’s work on mathematics tasks in the context of a ‘mathematics for teaching’ course aiming to develop mathematical content understandings and mathematical practices among primary teachers in one South African province. The course was developed in a national context of concerns about the nature and levels of primary teachers’ mathematical knowledge. Theories viewing mathematical practices as fundamental, contrasted with those that view mathematical practices and mathematical content in more separate and ‘to be integrated’ ways, are used to frame the analysis and critically reflect on the findings.ResultsData from this teacher’s pre-test and selected course assessments and interactions suggest that while he was able to develop some aspects of the mathematical practices described in the literature, his overall orientation remained attuned to memorization and recall. Findings also pointed to an ongoing reliance on external validation of the ‘correctness’ of his answers.ConclusionsThe data suggest that the presence of elements of mathematical practices cannot be viewed as equivalent to the presence of mathematical modes of enquiry. The analysis presented in this paper suggests that while elements of mathematical practices can be developed, moving towards an encompassing orientation to mathematical modes of enquiry may require more central focus on problem-solving approaches to achieve a change in orientation.
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