“Have I done anything like a scientist or an engineer?” Students' reflections with STEM activities

Recruiting talents into STEM fields is a major goal in STEM education. To achieve this, it is important to understand how students perceive their engagement in STEM in light of their understanding of STEM professionals’ work. This study aims at exploring whether and how students relate their experiences in a STEM project with their understanding of scientists’ and engineer’s work. A randomly selected sample of 143 4th to 6th grade students participating in a STEM fair was interviewed. Questions like “What has your group done in the project that resembles a scientist’/ an engineers’ work?” were asked and the interview data were coded. In addition, students' submitted reports of their STEM projects were analyzed to examine the nature of students’ engagement in the STEM projects. Results show that 84.4% students think that their group has done things like scientists in the STEM projects. And 60.6% students think that they have done things like engineers. Patterns and diversity of students’ identified scientific and engineering practices from the interviews will also be discussed. Copyright © 2017 WERA-HKERA.