Why we should capitalise on early childhood interest in engineering: changes in students’ interest over the school years

ABSTRACT

There is a significant concern in Australia that insufficient numbers of students are enrolling in, and graduating from, engineering degree programmes. Research studies and government reports continue to reveal that young people’s negative views of engineering are a major factor contributing to this phenomenon. To unearth how these views are formed and evolve, we investigated a sample of primary (n = 555), secondary (n = 493) and university (n = 1517) students in Australia. The students completed a survey that examined their interests in, attitudes towards, and knowledge and understandings of engineering. Key findings were that primary students were more positively predisposed towards engineering and its related sub-disciplines than secondary students; and that in terms of influences on career choice, an innate interest in science or engineering is a stronger influence than the potential earning power of an engineering position. It was also evident that careers advisors were seen to have a strong influence on secondary students’ choices. We argue that there is strong potential to harness and work with interest in engineering at an early age, and that there is considerable work needed to leverage advice and sustain interest at secondary level.

KEYWORDS:

• STEM education
• engineering careers
• science careers
• interest in stem

Acknowledgments

This paper was supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage research project involving the University of Newcastle, Engineers Australia and AmpControl Ltd. The support of all the parties is gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council Linkage Project [LP0562653].