Comparing high-school students' interest and understanding in individual versus integrated biology and engineering topics

Despite the increased interest from educators to make science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education more connected and integrated, there is little research on how to best do it. Although some studies suggest that integrated STEM education can have a positive impact on student learning outcomes, the studies contain some gaps and inconsistencies that make it challenging to implement or assess integrated STEM educational methods or programs. In this paper, we present and assess one way of integrating biology and engineering. The objective of this study was to begin assessing high-school students' interest and understanding in a few biology and engineering topics, as well as topics that integrate those same biology and engineering topics. A short survey was developed and administered with a small sample population (N = 27), and a short focus group study was conducted with 14 high-school students. The students were given a list of 18 topics, 6 of which were natural science topics (i.e. biology), 6 were applied science topics (i.e. engineering), and 6 topics integrated the natural and applied science topics. Students were asked to report their level of interest and understanding for each of the topics. The mean values were computed for each topic, and a two-way ANOVA analysis was done to determine if the responses for different category of topics were significantly different. Results suggested that, in general, students interest in integrated biology and engineering topics, greatly depended on the way the topic was presented. Some interesting relations between natural science, applied science, and integrated topics, as well as between students' interest and understanding were observed and are presented here.