Building STEM Career Interest Through Curriculum Treatments

Abstract

Watson and McMahon’s (2005) work identified a need for research to examine the what and how of children’s career development learning; this research is a start to answering that call, specifically focusing on STEM career interest as a precursor to development due to the current needs nationally for an increase in the STEM pipeline. This study examined the impacts of design-based learning and scientific inquiry curriculum treatments with embedded career content on the career interest of fifth-grade students as compared to traditional classroom methods. It found that there is an upward trend in interest with the use of these curriculum treatments, but it is not a significant change, likely due to the short time period of the unit and/or small n.