Outcomes for engineering students delivering a STEM education and outreach programme

ABSTRACT

University science outreach programmes are used to encourage more school students to select science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects in further education and pursue science-related careers. The benefits of science outreach programmes are often espoused from the perspective of programme participants. Little attention, however, is given to what university students delivering the programmes gain from the experience. This paper seeks to illustrate the benefits of engineering students delivering STEM outreach programmes in schools. It reports on a qualitative case study of the experiences of two STEM Education and Outreach team members from a regional university in Australia. Content analysis of interview data highlighted not only the participants’ motivations and perceived benefits of being involved in the STEM programme but also revealed the skills and attributes honed throughout the experience. Involvement in the STEM outreach programme resulted in the development of social and personal responsibility generic graduate attribute skills, evidenced through their motivations to be involved, the demonstration of understanding of teaching and learning, and application of science communication skills. This study demonstrates that designing and delivering STEM outreach programmes assists in the development of skills that will be beneficial when pursuing careers in engineering in the future.

KEYWORDS:

• STEM
• engineering education
• outreach educational programmes
• affective domain

Acknowledgement

The authors acknowledge gratefully Donna Satterthwait, who assisted with the interview.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Natalie Ruth Brown is Head of the Tasmania Institute of Learning and Teaching at the University of Tasmania. Her responsibilities include academic staff development, teaching and learning policy development and implementation, and promotion of scholarship of teaching and learning.

Noleine Fitzallen is a Lecturer in Assessment. Her research interests include authentic assessment, statistics education conceptualised as the Practice of Statistics; and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in the primary years.

ORCiD

Noleine Fitzallen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0002-5748

Natalie Ruth Brown http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8221-7486