Declining interests in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) related careers are concerning at a time when the society is becoming more reliant on complex technologies and science. Our study examined the predictors of students' STEM career interests within cohort data (N = 601) collected from Finnish general upper secondary…

In the last decades, secondary school students have indicated a low interest in science and a lack of awareness of authentic science careers that may impede their aspiration to work in science-related fields in future. To raise students' aspirations, several studies used context-based approaches, but few integrated career aspects into the school…

Extracurricular learning plays a key role in shaping students' interest in (not only) biology. The research examined which extracurricular areas related to biology can make biology more attractive for the participating Finnish and Czech students. A 5-point Likert scale questionnaire was administered to 178 Finnish and 195 Czech 9th-grade…

This study belongs to assessment-related research and aimed to investigate Finnish high-school students' (n = 211) topic-specific epistemic beliefs about climate change and whether the Norwegian topic-specific epistemic beliefs questionnaire (TSEBQ) was also valid among Finnish respondents. Thus, research data were not only derived from the TSEBQ…

Gender disparities in STEM fields have been under extensive study, the focus of which has been on future career aspirations. However, the primary phases in gender differences are still ambiguous when examined from this perspective, possibly due to the fact that most of the studies have targeted samples of upper secondary school or college…

Finland and Singapore are both top-performing countries in international assessments such as PISA. Finland has been consistently one of the high-achievers regarding not only students' literacy levels but also educational equity. Similarly, Singapore has continuously shown outstanding performance in PISA. It outperformed all the other participants…

Context-based learning (CBL) approaches have been recommended and expanded in science education to make science more relevant to students by connecting science content with students' daily life. Subsequently, in order to implement CBL at school, a group of scenarios has been produced by several stakeholders. However, there is a lack of resources…

Non-formal science education means goal-oriented learning outside of school. The use of out of school learning environments (e.g. science camps) has been found to increase motivation and interest in natural sciences. In this study, the relevance of non-formal science education in science camps has been analyzed from the perspectives of children…

Since students have lost their interest in school science, several student-centered approaches, such as using topics that are relevant for students, inquiry-based learning, and discussion-based learning have been implemented to attract pupils into science. However, the effect of these approaches was usually measured in small-scale research, and…

School students demonstrate a lack of interest in choosing science studies and science-related careers. To better understand the underlying reasons, this study aims to examine secondary school students' perceptions of working life skills and how these perceptions relate to the skills of the twenty-first century. The participants in this study were…

For scholars and policy-makers alike, deeper learning has been a promising paradigm for fostering students' interest in and mastery of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Deeper learning is assumed to result in a more thorough understanding of a subject that endures the test of time. To reach this level, a fascination with…

This study focuses on a youth science camp for pupils in sixth to ninth grades that is organized annually by the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. The main idea of the science camp is to learn to do guided inquiry in nature. The study investigates the significance of science camp for encouraging young participants to learn science and how the camp…

In order to facilitate policy-driven reforms in science education, it is important to understand how teaching innovations diffuse among teachers and how that adoption process can be catalysed. Little is known about the set of attitudes that makes teachers early or late adopters. In this study, the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (C-BAM) was employed…

This study investigated changes in elementary school students' (n = 140) situational interest as a function of achievement goal orientation profiles and task characteristics. The authors repeatedly measured situational interest during a simulated science learning task in 2 task conditions that differed in the concreteness of the task elements. The…

This study aimed to design a teaching sequence for science education that enabled lower secondary school students to enhance their motivation towards science. Further, it looked to examine the way the designed teaching sequence affected students with different motivational profiles. Industry site visits, with embodied theory-based motivational…