STEM Educators: What do they believe about their students?

Abstract

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) is a frequently discussed subject. Not so frequently discussed, however, are those imparting STEM knowledge on students. Much research has been done on aspects of STEM students, including who they are, how they learn, and the need to increase the numbers of underrepresented populations. There is no evident literature on educators, either by discipline or broadly and it has not been attempted with the goal of understanding how educators think, educate, and behave in the classroom. To fill this gap, a thorough survey was developed with a significant number of open-ended questions. Information on the amount of formal training, terminal degree, where educator began, and subjects taught was collected. Individual’s ideas about teaching and beliefs about how their and other STEM subjects should be taught were also collected. Of equal importance are experiences teaching, methodology, and the type of course being taught. This work presents information concerning beliefs about STEM students. The survey reached predominantly male educators teaching technology or engineering undergraduates nearing retirement age. However, educators surveyed received their terminal degree evenly over a time span of 35 years. About half of these educators believe that different STEM majors can be taught in a similar manner, while the other half did not agree or did not respond. The information reported here concerns the educators’ beliefs about their students. Teaching philosophy and demographic information is reported in other publications