Psychosocial Factors Impacting STEM Career Selection

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-24-2017

Publication Title

Journal of Educational Research

Volume

111

Issue

4

First page number:

446

Last page number:

458

Abstract

Attention on P-20 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education has increased tremendously in recent years. Many efforts are underway to promote STEM major and career selection across the nation; specifically, in engineering and computer science. The authors' purpose was to examine an underlying profile combinations of latent traits that influence student STEM career selection while designing serious educational games (SEGs). The authors combine a number of quantitative analysis methods in an effort to develop a rich understanding of how a profile combination of traits interact with one another to effect selection of STEM careers and majors. Study participants were 585 students enrolled in a full-time traditional high school. The addition of SEG design experiences into the student profile increases the probability of STEM career selection by 5.1 times.

Keywords

Educational technology; Latent class analysis; STEM education

Disciplines

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Language

English

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