A quasi-experimental study of the impact of college-run science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career days on American students’ STEM career aspirations

ABSTRACT

This quasi-experimental study examined the impact of participation in college-run STEM career days on American high school students’ STEM career aspirations. Data were collected from a nationwide retrospective cohort survey of 15,847 U.S. college students who provided information about their experiences during high school. Accounting for self-selection effects and a robust set of controls, results showed that students who participated in a college-run STEM career day during high school had 1.3 times the odds of expressing STEM career aspirations compared with a control group. We found that STEM career days were equally effective in promoting American students’ STEM career aspirations across background characteristics, levels of academic preparation, and prior STEM interest. Results suggest that policymakers and educators should seriously consider implementing STEM career days for high school students as an evidence-based strategy to effectively increase STEM career interest.

KEYWORDS:

• STEM interest
• career days
• career aspirations

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Science Foundation [Grant Number 1161052].