Motivation style of K–12 students attending outreach activities in the STEM field: a person-based approach

Abstract

This study focused on K–12 students attending outreach activities (i.e. activities from STEM-based industry emphasizing applications of STEM content in the STEM field), with the main objective being to motivate students for a future career in STEM. Outreach activities can be regarded as environments that extend the regular in-class learning environment and that differ from regular environments in terms of several dimensions, such as autonomy, relevance and learning resources. To date, little research has been conducted on these types of learning environments. We followed a person-centred approach in identifying students’ motivational profiles and corresponding student groups in outreach activities, and in evaluating whether students with different profiles differ in their STEM-related attitudes and experience of outreach activities. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. Latent-profile analyses revealed four different motivational profiles: good-quality motivation, moderate-motivation, high-quantity motivation and low-quantity motivation. Students with a good-quality motivation reported significantly more favorable-attitudes towards a future career in STEM compared with the other groups, with content and personal relevance being key factors for students with this profile. This study provided support for adding outreach activities to the school learning environment.

Exploring the role of motivation in STEM education: A systematic review

“…Among the studies examined, only one study (1.4%, e.g., Shurygin et al, 2023) used an experimental method to examine motivation in STEM education. students' motivation regarding STEM (e.g., Gok, 2021;Kuo et al, 2019;Stringer et al, 2020;Yang et al, 2018), the effects of instructional activities on participants' motivation on STEM (Asigigan & Samur, 2021;Chittum et al, 2017;Funa et al, 2021;Higde & Aktamis, 2022;Julià & Antolí, 2019;LaForce et al, 2017;Tsai et al, 2021), investigating the relationships between STEM motivation and related factors (Fong et al, 2021;Gladstone et al, 2022;Hermans et al, 2022;Jeong et al, 2020;Jiang et al, 2020;Vennix et al, 2022). Regarding student-level factors, for example, a study by Dokme et al (2022) researched the motivation of female preservice teachers toward their STEM fields.…”

An Exploration of Guide’s Roles in STEM Outreach Activities: A Contribution to Students’ Motivation for Career Aspirations?

“…Both relevance and rationale are important to satisfy the need for autonomy, if this fits the structure of the activity and students believe it is meaningful for them [35]. Both relevance and rationale were present, but the complexity of the contexts might be too much for students who are insecure or sensitive for interaction with guides [14].…”

“…Within these activities, the guide appeared a key player, as the person who was organizing and "teaching" the activities and therefore might have an impact on outreach activity characteristics. In our former studies [10,13,14], from a student perspective, outreach activities appeared to be promising add-ons for science courses from a motivational and future career preparation point of view. In prior studies, about outreach activities, mostly university outreach programs with students or faculty members as STEM-ambassadors were investigated, in which the providers (i.e., students and faculty members) were trained in communication and content [15].…”

“…In these outreach activities, guides "taught" from a teacher's perspective and at the same time from a STEM ambassadors' perspective. To map guides' behavior and actions, the exploration in this study focused on their activities in the teacher role and/or STEMambassador role, which is expected to contribute to creating autonomous motivation based on our previous studies based on self-reported student perceptions [10,13,14]. In addition, observational studies exploring, for example, autonomy-supportive teacher behavior are limited and have only been applied to regular educational practices [24][25][26].…”

Meta-analysis of the STEM Based Think Pair Share (TPS) Model on Students 21st Century Thinking Abilities in Indonesia

“…Many schools in remote or rural areas still lack laboratory facilities and equipment to support STEM learning. This makes it difficult for students in these areas to develop their skills and interests in STEM (Vennix et al, 2023). Therefore, there is a need for greater efforts from the government, educational institutions and society as a whole to improve access and quality of STEM education in Indonesia, so as to create a young generation that is ready to face challenges in the digital era and globalisation (Hong et al, 2023).…”