Indonesian students’ STEM career motivation: a study focused on gender and academic level

Abstract

Abstract The STEM field faces challenges related to uncertainties about the number and composition of skilled workforce. Measuring STEM career motivation (STEM-CM) of students at an early grade is crucial to improve the quality of science learning and to engage more students in STEM fields. This study focuses on the gender and academic level issues related to STEM career motivation. A total of 1583 elementary and middle school students participated in investigating two research questions: (1) Do gender and academic level impact students’ STEM career motivation? (2) How to classify students based on their STEM-CM? This study revealed that gender was not significantly related to STEM-CM. Nonetheless, academic level impacted significantly with STEM-CM where students’ motivation declined from elementary to middle school. Furthermore, the clustering method elicited five groups of students for consideration in designing STEM teaching activities. The influenced factors of students’ motivation for STEM careers were discussed. Finally, customized learning to improve student engagement in STEM was recommended.