The Development of Interest and Integrated STEM

• In Event: STEM Integration: Promises and Challenges

Abstract

Objectives
This paper will provide an overview of research on the development of interest and its potential to inform integrated STEM education. It provides answers to questions raised by the National Academies Board: 1) What does the research evidence related to the development of interest and identity in STEM imply about the design of learning experiences that integrate within and across the STEM disciplines? 2) What is the relation between interest generated in a given instructional context and the development of sustained, longer-term interest and identity? and 3) What is the role of integration in the design of learning experiences that generate interest?

Theoretical framework
The present consideration focuses on interest as a cognitive and affective motivational variable. Interest as a developmental variable is important to integrated STEM education because it has been repeatedly found to positively impact learner attention, goals, and levels of learning (see Hidi & Renninger, 2006; Renninger & Hidi, 2011). Moreover, learners of all ages can be supported to develop interest (Renninger, 2010).

Methods and sources of evidence
Responses to the questions posed by the National Academies Board are addressed using findings from the research literatures in science education and motivation, as well as data from a study of integrated STEM impact, a study of at-risk middle-school age youth participating in an integrated project-based out-of-school science workshop that allows comparison with a control group and a subject-matter focused inquiry-only workshop.

Results and conclusions
There is little research specifically addressing interest and identity in STEM integration, especially research addressing issues of design and implementation at the level of practice. However, the features of the integrated STEM educational context appear to be the same as those that support interest to develop, including research on features of the learning environment that promote the development of interest (e.g., Azevedo, 2006), suggestions about design elements including interactions (e.g., Barron et al, 2009) that trigger interest (e.g. Durik & Harackiewicz, 2007), and literature suggesting that identification with a domain accompanies the development of interest, (Krapp, 2007; Renninger, 2009).

Findings from a study of the impact of integrated STEM will be used to provide examples and preliminary evidence that this learning context positions participants to use evidence to both question and seek answers to questions. These data suggest that an integrated STEM curriculum provides opportunities for participants with less developed interest as well as those with more developed interest. Multiple methods provide data on interest, self-efficacy, and identification with science, as well as change on classic science assessments as described by Lehrer and Schauble (2006): science-as-theory change (e.g., Carey, 1989), science-as-practice (e.g. Rosebery, Warren, & Conant, 1992), and science-as-logical reasoning (e.g. Chen & Klahr, 1999).

Scientific significance
Links between the integrated STEM educational context and research on interest and identity are described. Data that allow consideration of the impact of integrated STEM relative to participants in a control group and an inquiry-only disciplinary workshop provide preliminary evidence of the potential of integrated STEM.

Author

• K. Ann Renninger, Swarthmore College