Share Paper: Elementary Informal STEM Experiences and STEM Career Interest

  1. Katherine Dabney, Virginia Commonwealth University, United States
  2. Kimberly Good, Virginia Commonwealth University, United States
  3. Gerhard Sonnert, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, United States
  4. Philip Sadler, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, United States

Abstract: Outreach that encourages exposure to STEM activities as well as enrollment in STEM courses in middle school and above have grown in recent years. Unfortunately, support in the elementary school curriculum for programs in areas such as engineering remains not yet widely available. Thus, practitioners and researchers have recently begun to examine the influence of informal out-of-school-time (OST) STEM activities. This study examines the association of two informal OST engineering experiences in grades K-4 with informal OST STEM career interest in grades 5-8 through a logistical regression model and the evaluation of prototypical odds ratios. Our analysis addresses two specific ...