Improving Students' Attitudes toward STEM and Their Interest in STEM Careers: A Collaborative Learning Approach

Today, the main driver of the economy is innovation, much of which comes from advances in science, technology, mathematics and engineering (STEM). Developing high-quality human resources in the STEM field is a breakthrough in implementing socio-economic strategies in each country and STEM education plays a key role. In addition, for STEM education to be effective, improving students' attitudes toward STEM and interest in STEM careers is very important. We conducted this study to examine whether and how collaborative learning environments impact changes in students' attitudes toward STEM as well as their level of interest in STEM careers. By organizing a controlled experimental study for 81 middle school students (84 control groups), in which both groups participated in a 4-week STEM course with the same course content but the experimental group was taught using a collaborative learning method. Research results show that the collaborative learning environment promoted students' attitudes toward STEM in the experimental group higher than in the control group (the increase for each content ranged from 0.23 - 0.36 scores), and their level of interest in STEM careers in the experimental group is also 0.28 scores higher than the control group, the above differences are statistically significant. This result is important evidence for teachers and educational institutions to have more options in using active educational methods to meet the goals of STEM education.