Students’ images of STEM professionals: a study in the Portuguese context

ABSTRACT

The shortage of students in STEM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics) areas is a global concern and one of the reasons why students do not want to pursue STEM careers is the unenthusiastic image that they have about STEM areas. This study aims to examine the images that 135 Portuguese elementary students (7-12 years old) have about STEM professionals. Data collection was performed using a draw-and-write instrument: the students were asked to draw someone that works in each STEM area, and to answer two questions: ‘Where does that person work?’ and ‘What does that person do?’. Checklists, based on instruments previously described in the literature, were developed for each STEM discipline. A descriptive analysis of the results was made, and the statistically significant differences between male and female students’ drawings were evaluated. The results show that students still retain stereotypical images of STEM professionals and have a lack of perception about the appearance and work that STEM professionals do. In conclusion, there is a demand for changes in teaching practices to change the erroneous and unrealistic impressions that students may have about STEM areas.

KEYWORDS:

• Elementary school
• science education
• STEM education
• students’ drawings

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Declaration of interest statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by national Funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the project number PTDC/CED-EDG/31480/2017.