High School Students’ Perceptions of the Effects of International Science Olympiad on Their STEM Career Aspirations and Twenty-First Century Skill Development

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Sahin, Alpaslan Gulacar, Ozcan Stuessy, Carol L.
Copyright Year	2015
Abstract	Social cognitive theory guided the design of a survey to investigate high school students' perceptions of factors affecting their career contemplations and beliefs regarding the influence of their participation in the international Science Olympiad on their subject interests and twenty-first century skills. In addition, gender differences in students' choice of competition category were studied. Mixed methods analysis of survey returns from 172 Olympiad participants from 31 countries showed that students' career aspirations were affected most by their teachers, personal interests, and parents, respectively. Students also indicated that they believed that their participation in the Olympiad reinforced their plan to choose a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) major at college and assisted them in developing and improving their twenty-first century skills. Furthermore, female students' responses indicated that their project choices were less likely to be in the engineering category and more likely to be in the environment or energy categories. Findings are discussed in the light of increasing the awareness of the role and importance of Science Olympiads in STEM career choice and finding ways to attract more female students into engineering careers.
Starting Page	785
Ending Page	805
Page Count	21
File Format	PDF HTM / HTML
DOI	10.1007/s11165-014-9439-5
Volume Number	45
Alternate Webpage(s)	http://www.harmonytx.org/Portals/0/research/Sahin_Gulacar_Stuessy_HighSchool_Students_Perceptions_RISE.pdf
Alternate Webpage(s)	https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-014-9439-5
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article