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Professional development opportunities for museum educators are often short-term experiences that are void of reflections to support one's professional growth and practices within a collaborative environment. Video clubs may serve as an effective approach to supporting the professional growth and practices of educators in museum settings. Video clubs are composed of a group of educators engaged in video-based reflections around their work and interactions with others. In collaboration with six museums, we considered how video clubs, developed and implemented to promote professional growth and learning in school learning environments, would translate to a museum learning environment with a specific focus on interactions of failure experiences in STEAM-related making programs. In this paper, we highlight benefits, challenges, learnings, and recommendations as a way to support museums interested in establishing and implementing reflective practices within video recording and video sharing.

To remedy the disparity between sexes in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, it is important to understand the factors critical to initiating and maintaining STEM interest. To this end, we created and administered a survey to almost 8,000 individuals in and outside of STEM fields. Our results shed light on the various factors that are critical for sparking STEM interest and persisting in STEM fields for each sex as well as the differences in movement in and out of STEM pathways for each. These results reveal that although there is no singular pathway into STEM fields, self-driven interest is a large factor in persistence, especially for males, and females rely more heavily on support from others.

Background: Despite the increasing number of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) jobs available, concern continues to grow over the low number of students who choose to study and enter STEM fields. Research suggests that children begin to identify their interests and career aspirations related to STEM as early as elementary school when they begin to shape their personal identities and start making decisions about who they "are" and "could be" in the future, their role identities (e.g., scientist, engineer). Existing surveys that assess identity target high school or post-secondary students, with less work on elementary and middle school students. This paper describes the development and validation of survey instruments to assess engineering identity in elementary students and its adaptation to a more general STEM context. Results: The role identity survey in engineering (RIS-E) was developed across four phases of pilot testing where it was administered to 634 students in third-sixth grade enrolled in classrooms in the West, Midwest, and Northeastern United States. Exploratory modeling approaches and scale reliability were used to narrow down items, while confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) and item response theory (IRT) approaches were used to examine item performance. The final survey contained four scales that assess aspects of one's identity (competence, interest, self-recognition, and recognition by others), all of which demonstrated strong psychometric properties. The RIS-E was then adapted to assess STEM identity (RIS-STEM), and it was administered to 678 fourth-fifth grade students enrolled in classrooms in the Southwestern United States. CFA and IRT analyses provided support for use of the RIS-STEM in a more general STEM context. Conclusions: The RIS-E and RIS-STEM appear to produce reliable scores that measure aspects of identity (engineering and STEM) in elementary students. Suggestions are made for future studies to examine how the RIS-E and RIS-STEM function across diverse student populations and the impact on one's identity as a result of curricula or programs designed to encourage and support identity development in youth, especially in engineering and STEM.

In the STEM fields, adequate proficiency in reading and interpreting graphs is widely held as a central element for scientific literacy given the importance of data visualizations to succinctly present complex information. Although prior research espouses methods to improve graphing proficiencies, there is little understanding about when and how students develop these skills during the course of their education. To address this gap in the research, we sought to create an assessment tool to measure differences in these abilities across groups with varied levels of experience in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This study presents results from a data visualization literacy assessment we created to begin to understand the development of expertise in this domain.

Previous research has established the importance of early interest in STEM as a key factor in persistence. Our current research builds on this foundation and extends it to add more detail to understanding the types of experiences that trigger and maintain interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Using survey data from nearly 8,000 individuals, we are able to address the "When?," "What?," and "Who?" of those first experiences. Additionally, our data provide information on the types of experiences that maintained interest (or not) beyond the triggering event. Through purposeful sampling, our data include those who ended up in STEM fields and those who did not, which allows us to make important comparisons across these groups. Overall, our findings indicate that individuals who complete STEM degrees have quite varied histories and that the triggering of their interest happened across a wide age spectrum. Similarly, in terms of who was involved or what their triggering experience was, the general results support the notion that there are many pathways to STEM with no clear preferential pathway.

The loss of talented women from the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) pipeline has been widely recognized within science education as a pressing issue, particularly in the physical sciences. To provide a gender-based perspective of a popular educational device, the present study evaluated undergraduate research experiences (UREs) from a longitudinal perspective in respect to participation, learning enhancements, and contribution to the pursuit of a postgraduate education. Data from practicing scientists and graduate students indicated that women were more likely to participate in these research programs than their male counterparts. Of those who had participated (n = 1829), similar patterns in conferred gains for men and women were reported; however, gender-based variations were observed within items associated with self-efficacy, science interest, and the practice of authentic research. Women were found to identify UREs as a primary reason for entering graduate school at a significantly higher rate than their male counterparts. Results of this study suggest the long-term efficacy of UREs as a gateway for women interested in STEM careers and provide support in justifying research programs and initiatives for women in traditionally male-dominated fields. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.)

For more than half a century concerns about the ability of American students to compete in a global workplace focused policymakers' attention on improving school performance generally, and student achievement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) specifically. In its most recent form--No Child Left Behind--there is evidence this focus led to a repurposing of instructional time to dedicate more attention to tested subjects. While this meant a narrowing of the curriculum to focus on English and mathematics at the elementary level, the effects on high school curricula have been less clear and generally absent from the research literature. In this study, we sought to explore the relationship between school improvement efforts and student achievement in science and thus explore the intersection of school reform and STEM policies. We used school-level data on state standardized test scores in English and math to identify schools as either improving or declining over three consecutive years. We then compared the science achievement of students from these schools as measured by the ACT Science exams. Our findings from three consecutive cohorts, including thousands of high school students who attended 12th grade in 2008, 2009, and 2010 indicate that students attending improving schools identified by state administered standardized tests generally performed no better on a widely administered college entrance exam with tests in science, math and English. In 2010, students from schools identified as improving in English scored nearly one-half of a point lower than their peers from declining schools on both the ACT Science and Math exams. We discuss various interpretations and implications of these results and suggest areas for future research. (Contains 2 figures, 5 tables, and 2 notes.)

As the global economic crisis continues, sustaining the United States' position as a leader in research and development is a top concern of policy makers. Looking to increase the number of students pursuing degrees in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), calls for improved mathematics and science education abound. We completed a two-part analysis to assess the school-based factors related to students choosing to complete a major in STEM. The results indicate that the majority of students who concentrate in STEM make that choice during high school, and that choice is related to a growing interest in mathematics and science rather than enrollment or achievement. These results indicate that the current policy focus on advanced-level course taking and achievement as measures to increase the flow of students into STEM may be misguided. (Contains 10 tables and 3 footnotes.)