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WORK SUMMARY

Author：Chuting Lu, Shaona Zhou

School of Physics and Telecommunication Engineering South China Normal University

Exploring Changes in Primary Students’ Attitudes towards STEM across Genders and Grade Levels in Mainland China

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01

Introduction

02

Research Methodology

03

04

Discussion

CONTENTS

Research Results

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Part 01

Introduction

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Background

Importance of STEM education

  • boost economy of many nations and countries
  • labor market ask for related ability

Students’s attitudes towards STEM

Challenges at present

  • lost interest
  • switch to other majors
  • fail to obtain a degree
  • have an impact on students’ choices in the future STEM careers

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  • males were positive than females
  • similar attitudes
  • depended on domains of science

​

​

across genders

Literature review--Student attitudes towards STEM

across grade levels

  • as grade level increased, STEM attitudes dropped consistently

​

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Do primary students exhibit different attitudes towards STEM according to gender?

Gender

01

Do primary students exhibit different attitudes towards STEM according to grade level?

Grade level

02

What change could the proposed Project-based Integrated STEM Program bring about on primary students’ attitudes towards STEM?

STEM Program

03

Research Focus

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Part 02

Research Methodology

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The Project-based Integrated STEM Program

5 minutes

problem-based learning method

First phase: teacher-oriented activity

40 minutes

two in one team & discuss and design projects

Second phase: student-oriented section

15 minutes

phenomena and results & key concepts and principles

Third phase: presentations by team

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Procedures

  • after the last STEM project
  • all particpants
  • S-STEM questionnaire

​

Post-test

  • one project for each week
  • lasted for twelve weeks

​

STEM program

  • before the first STEM project
  • 181 students in total
  • S-STEM questionnaire

​

Pre-test

1

2

3

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S-STEM questionnaire

  • developed by a research team at North Carolina State University(2015)
  • constructed based on Erkut and Marx’s (2005) STEM attitudes questionnaire and the items on the attitudes towards 21st century skills from the Student Learning Conditions questionnaire (2010)

Q1-Q8: Mathematics

Q9-Q17: Science

Q18-Q26: Engineering/Technology

Assessment

Q27-Q37: 21st century skills

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Reliabilities

The Cronabach’s alpha coefficients of S-STEM for pre-test and post-test were 0.896 and 0.907

​

Performances

Student performances were described with regard to mean scores and standard deviations

​

Gender & Grade level

The differences between boys and girls, or among lower and upper primary students were identified by a t-test.

Pre and Post-test

A t-test statistic was used to test the significant differences between pre-test and post-test.

Data analysis

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Part 03

Research Results

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Part 04

Discussion

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  • no significant difference on the S-STEM
  • STEM subscale: boys performed better than girls (not significant)
  • 21st century skills: boys performed worse than girls (not significant)

​

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across genders

Primary Students’ preformance on S-STEM (pre-test)

across grade levels

  • upper primary students performed worse than lower primary on S-STEM, STEM subscale, and 21st century skills
  • ask for improvement of STEM education

​

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Primary students as a whole

  • limited related projects for primary level
  • this program is effective for primary students

More helpful for boys students

More effective for upper primary

  • S-STEM & 21st century skills: 0.01 vs 0.05
  • upper primary students can develop more positive attitudes by studying related projects
  • gender difference in attitudes towards STEM
  • projects design bias

The Effect of Project-based Integrated STEM Program

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Redesign the STEM curriculum to

Future work

help girl students

assist lower primary students

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Thank you!

WORK SUMMARY

Author：Chuting Lu, Shaona Zhou

School of Physics and Telecommunication Engineering

South China Normal University

zhou.shaona@m.scnu.edu.cn