Impact of Career Expectations, Project-Based Teamwork and Failure Support on High School Robotics Learning Outcomes

• In Event: Project-Based Learning in STEM and Beyond

Abstract

As technological advances keep transforming global occupational structures, there is a growing call to link academic curriculum to career-oriented competency-building. In this study, we draw on quantitative program evaluation data to explore how the interplay of students’ career outcome expectations, project-based teamwork engagements, and failure support shapes high school pre-engineering rocket-building outcomes. Using the structural equation modeling approach, we found that students’ career outcome expectations directly predict their learning outcomes. We also found that team-based project learning activities and failure support exhibited statistically significant indirect effects on the relationship between career expectancies and learning outcomes. The findings have implications for promoting active project-based learning and productive failure support activities to enhance STEM performance outcomes.

Authors

• Lilian Naa Obiorkor Tetteh, Texas Tech University

• Hansel Burley, University of New Mexico

• Edwin Teye Sosi, Texas Tech University

• Faith Maina, Texas Tech University