Empirical Profiling of High School Bilingual Students’ Perceptions of STEM Learning Environment

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 3:45 pm - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: Languages and languaging within technical and adaptive contexts: STEM revisited

Abstract

This study examined how bilingual students perceive their STEM learning environments and how these perceptions reflect different patterns of their STEM learning experiences. A bilingual survey was administered to 1,105 students across nine high schools in the southwestern United States. Exploratory factor analysis identified four key dimensions: pedagogical effectiveness of technology and engineering teachers; pedagogical effectiveness of science, math, and all teachers; college aspirations, parent support, and self-efficacy; and STEM learning resources and school climate. K-means cluster analysis grouped students into four distinct categories based on their perception patterns—ranging from highly supported and engaged to broadly disengaged and under-supported. Nearly 75% of students fell into the latter category. These findings reveal substantive variations in bilingual students’ STEM learning experiences.

Authors

• Hector H. Rivera, Texas A&M University

• Heesun Chang, Texas A&M University

• Amin Raeisi-Vanani, Texas A&M University

• Yiming Zhu, Texas A&M University

• Eun Hye Grace Ko, Texas A&M University