Tag: STEM

What is the link between STEM teacher professional development and student achievement?

By Cynthia Lake, Center for Research and Reform in Education, Johns Hopkins University

Although schools invest heavily in professional development to improve math and science instruction, there has been limited clarity on how these efforts affect teachers and whether changes at the teacher level lead to student learning gains. A new EdWorkingPaper from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University synthesizes findings from 46 randomized controlled trials to investigate the chain of effects from teacher PD to student outcomes.

On average, PD programs produced a large positive impact on teacher outcomes, including knowledge and instructional practice (ES = +0.52). Not all improvements were equally consequential for students. A one standard deviation improvement in instructional practice was associated with a +0.24 standard deviation gain in student achievement, while changes in teacher knowledge showed a smaller and non-significant relationship. PD programs that emphasized formative assessment or included a clear focus on deepening teacher knowledge were more likely to improve instruction.

These findings suggest that strengthening classroom instruction is a critical mechanism for translating teacher professional development into better student outcomes in math and science.

Can female tutors inspire girls in STEM interest, engagement, and performance?

By Feifei Wang, The Centre for Information Technology in Education, The University of Hong Kong

Persistent gender disparities in STEM remain, even when girls perform equally well as boys in STEM subjects. These disparities suggest the importance of challenging existing preconceived views about gender differences in STEM and highlight the need for role models who may help change these views. A recent study investigated whether female tutors in STEM-related subjects improve girls’ STEM interest, engagement, and math performance.

The researchers partnered with a New England school district where five high schools offered Algebra 1 tutoring to ninth-grade students. The students were placed into small tutoring groups ranging from one to three students, and then randomly assigned to match with either a female or male tutor. Initially, tutoring was planned as an in-person, school-day program. However, due to difficulties hiring enough local tutors, it was ultimately delivered in person at two schools and virtually at three others. 422 students were in the final analysis sample, taught by 23 tutors.

Results indicated that ninth-grade girls who learned from female math tutors reported markedly higher interest in STEM compared to those who learned from male tutors (a 0.73 standard deviation difference). Moreover, they were also 3.9% more likely to earn at least a C- in Algebra 1. No significant difference was found for tutoring assessments or attendance, likely due to measurement issues. Thus, the study highlighted the positive STEM role model that female tutors can play, particularly during the early high school years. The findings indicate that ensuring additional female tutors for gender matching in STEM at the outset of students’ high school careers may be a promising strategy to mitigate gender inequality in STEM.

How early do field-related stereotypes start? Understanding children’s gender beliefs in STEM and verbal abilities

By Carmen Pannone, University of Cagliari

In a recent meta-analysis on children’s gender stereotypes about STEM and verbal abilities, data from 98 studies across 33 nations involving more than 145,000 children were integrated. The findings reveal that verbal stereotypes favoring girls’ abilities (b = 0.19) are actually stronger than aggregated STEM stereotypes (b = 0.09). A closer look shows that at age 6, stereotypes reflected in-group bias—boys favoring boys, and girls favoring girls. These gender differences declined with age, and by age 16, the stereotypes tended to align with traditional gender roles: boys were favored in STEM ability, and girls in verbal ability.

Girls showed stronger pro-female verbal stereotypes than boys, and while verbal stereotypes increasingly favored girls with age, STEM stereotypes remained more stable. Girls’ STEM beliefs shifted from pro-female to pro-male around ages 10–12, while boys’ verbal beliefs flipped to pro-female around ages 8–10. By age 8, verbal stereotypes already significantly favored girls. STEM stereotypes varied by domain, with stronger male-favoring beliefs in computer science, engineering, and physics (b = 0.25), and weaker or negligible biases in general math (b = 0.06) and science (b = 0.09). Background also mattered: children identified as Black held weaker STEM stereotypes than those identified as White, especially among girls. Black children’s views were largely gender-neutral, while White children slightly favored boys.

These results suggest that stereotypes emerge early, and may shape children’s interests and academic choices. Addressing these beliefs calls for cross-disciplinary collaboration and greater research focus on understudied areas like computing, engineering, and verbal ability development. Interventions could aim to challenge or broaden stereotypes and mitigate their impact, guided by a clear understanding of when such beliefs typically take root.

STEM enhancement program prevents decline in math and science achievement

By Lisa Nehring, Johns Hopkins University

High quality STEM education remains evasive in American public school systems, and disproportionately so in districts serving minority and/or students from low-income families. Because of this, Rutgers University’s Radha Jagannathan, Michael J Camasso, and Maia Delacalle examined the impacts of one STEM enhancement program, Nurture thru Nature (NtN), in a randomized control study of more than 600 elementary school students over an 8 year period of program implementation. NtN was created through a partnership between Rutgers University, Johnson & Johnson (headquartered in New Brunswick, NJ), and the New Brunswick Public School district. It provides enrichment activities to students randomly selected by lottery to participate in the STEM program from fourth grade until high school graduation. NtN focuses on natural and environmental sciences in order to support students’ interest in STEM careers. Students meet twice per week for 3 hours during the year and 3 days per week for 7.5 hours during summer recess, incorporating garden and indoor lab experiences, STEM curriculum aligned with classroom teachers’ math and science instruction, as well as a commitment to parental involvement in students’ STEM education.

NtN began in 2010 with its first cohort of 19 students and steadily accumulated further cohorts as funding became available. Because of this, the analytic sample contains 630 students, with 139 students in the treatment group and 491 students in the control, with treatment students having differing levels of program exposure ranging from 2 to 8 years. Academic achievement, measured by students’ math and science grades, revealed that NtN had an effect size of +0.43 on students’ math grades and +0.39 on students’ science grades (p<0.05). When considering both math and science grades over time, NtN students exhibited a much slower decline in grade performance. While control students saw an average science grade decline of -0.58 per year, NtN science grade decline occurred at an average rate of -0.15 per year. The authors emphasize the importance of programming such as NtN for students’ success in math and science courses, thereby increasing the likelihood of STEM job opportunities for students from backgrounds historically underrepresented in STEM careers.