03/31/2022
By Lizzie Casanave

The School of Education invites you to attend an Ed.D. Dissertation Defense by Anna Seiders on “The Effects of Immersive Teacher STEM Career Experiences on High School Teacher and Student STEM Career Awareness and Student STEM Attitudes: A Case Study.”

Date: April 13, 2022
Time: 11:30 a.m.
Location: This will be a virtual dissertation defense via Zoom. Those interested in attending should contact Iman_Chahinme@uml.edu to request access to the Zoom link.

Dissertation Chair: Iman Chahine, Ph.D., Associate Professor, College of Education, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Dissertation Committee:

  • Anita Greenwood, Ed.D., Dean Emerita, College of Education, University of Massachusetts Lowell
  • Karin Loach, Ed.D., Scholar in Practice, College of Education, Teacher, Auburn Middle School

Abstract:
With the rapidly changing technology, it is no surprise that the number of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) occupations continues to rise. Between 2009 and 2015, available STEM jobs in the United States grew by 10.5%, twice the growth of non-STEM jobs (Fayer et al., 2017). However, the United States is currently falling behind other world leaders in STEM (De Angelis, 2015). To increase student enrollment into STEM careers, a focus needs to be placed on career education. When students have sufficient access to information about STEM careers, they are more likely to develop interests in STEM subjects and, thus, have a higher inclination to pursue STEM careers (Museus et al., 2011). However, teachers lack STEM career experience thereby limiting their influence on student STEM career knowledge (Angle et al., 2016; Ainslie & Huffman, 2019). This mixed-methods case study explored how STEM domain teachers negotiate their career knowledge using an immersive career experience in conjunction with virtual job shadow, as well as what impacts the teachers experience had on the attitudes and career awareness of high school students. The immersive experience consisted of career exploration, teacher-industry meetings, an industry-based design problem, and the implementation of mini lesson plans. The Adapted S-STEM survey was utilized to analyze student changes in attitudes and career awareness. There were minimal findings within STEM attitudes with the most significant being among Special Education and Grade 12 students. However, there were significant positive findings on four of the five statements related to career awareness. A qualitative approach was used to analyze pre- and post-interviews of the six participating teachers. The interviews were analyzed using Saldaña’s steps for coding. Six themes emerged related to three overarching categories: need for systemic support, shifting interactions with students, and teacher perceptions of STEM career education.