The ways in which children and adolescents become interested in science have been well studied. However, little is known from a lifespan perspective about how this process continues from childhood through adulthood. This cross-national study builds an understanding of doctoral students in the sciences in the Chile and the United States and how…

The call to increase student interest in science and related careers continues to receive national attention in the United States. While many current efforts have focused on infrastructure support and innovative pedagogies to better reach and engage students, research suggests that having a career role model can influence adolescents' interest in…

The development of interest and aspirations to pursue STEM careers has been a focus of recent educational research and action. This study used Social Cognitive Career Theory as the framework to explore how types of learning experiences in and out of school prior to college affected undergraduates' STEM beliefs and intent to pursue a career in a…

This instrumental case study (Stake, 1995) explores the external factors that influence international science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) postdoctoral scholars in the United States to pursue a career in STEM. Interviews with 20 international STEM postdoctoral scholars were analyzed deductively to shed light on their unique…

We used the social-cognitive choice model (Lent et al., 2018) as a framework for investigating academic and career choice in the domain of geoscience for male and female students. In addition, we explored the role of perceived connection to instructors and transformative experience as additional factors in the social-cognitive choice model. A…

Teachers' career choice motives are defined as the interests, orientations, and motives of young people that motivate them to aspire the teaching career. Teachers' career choice motives have been shown to impact teaching and job retention. Many studies investigated teachers generic career choice motives but studies on teachers' subject-specific…

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…

Extensive research shows that non-formal science education programs effectively build and sustain long-term interest and persistence in science careers. Framed by expectancy-value theory, this study examined the academic and career outcomes of students who participated in a multi-year volunteer program at a science museum. Twenty-one participants…

Memes within animated graphical interchange formats (GIFs) are developed and shared by Internet users to communicate cultural ideas, symbols, or practices for a wide global audience. Among the billions of GIFs shared internationally, some portray scientists engaged in scientific work. Media and science education scholarship alike have evidenced…

In the present study, the effects of STEM-based robotics applications on students' creativity and scientific attitudes in the Electricity Unit of 7th grade have been investigated using the mixed method's nested pattern. Sixty students, 30 of whom are the experimental group and the other 30 constitute the control group, attending a post-school…

Our purpose in this paper is to shed light on the intricacies of designing and enacting curricular innovations aiming to enhance students' interest in science and their understandings of STEM careers. We present the design and describe the implementation of a set of STEM career-oriented curriculum materials referred to as career-based scenarios. A…

Despite girls enjoying and being good at physics, the proportion of girls studying physics and going into physics related careers still lags behind that of boys. A large volume of research exists on the factors related to the uptake of girls into physics, however little research looks at the link between parents and their child's physics uptake.…

This qualitative descriptive research explored the perspectives of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) senior high school students in a public secondary school in Zambales, Philippines on their reasons why they enrolled in STEM and their intent to pursue relevant career. A total of 20 Grade 12 students were purposively…

The present study evaluates high school juniors and seniors (n = 295) to explore their preference for science as indicated by science motivation, attitude, academic experience, and interest. Latent profile analysis was used to model profiles of preferences for science with a person-centered approach. Then, the impact of self-concept variables was…

The current study describes preliminary findings from the Xavier University of Louisiana Mobile Outreach for Laboratory Enrichment (XULA-MOLE) project, which is a collaboration between Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA), a Historically Black and Catholic University, and participating 9th-12th grade classrooms in the central New Orleans area…