ENT3R

'Close to STEM' is the Norwegian national STEM strategy covering the period 2015-2019. It touches upon a wide range of topics ranging from the energy / green transition and climate to teacher shortages and shortages of STEM skilled people. The full document can be accessed via the link above (Norwegian only).

The overall aim of this thesis was to understand Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) choices and how they can be influenced by recruitment initiatives at different points in the choice process from primary school throughout secondary school, and in the transition to higher education. The thesis consists of four articles that investigate factors that students describe as important for their choice of STEM education in general, and more specifically the role of specific initiatives in students’ choice.

In the first article, interest was the most common answer when Norwegian, Danish and English first year STEM students were asked to write why they had chosen the study they had started on. Family, school experiences, popular science and leisure activities were mentioned as important sources of inspiration. Some students described outreach or specific recruitment initiatives as inspiring, such as web sites, science and mathematics competitions, open days or information brochures. The second article investigated what sources of information and inspiration that were important for Norwegian first year STEM students. Here, almost all students answered that they had visited the web pages of the universities/university colleges, but relatively few answered that they had visited external campaign web sites. Almost no one answered that their choice was inspired by career counsellors, but a substantially higher number of students answered that they were inspired by popular science.

The third and fourth articles investigated two specific recruitment initiatives: One initiative where secondary students travel to their nearest university to take part in mathematics trainings led by university STEM students, and one two-day long event where girls in upper secondary school go to a university in order to receive information about STEM studies at the university. The results show that students value meeting university students, partly because the students work as role models and can give trustworthy information about what it is like to study STEM in higher education. The results also show that telling students that STEM studies demand much time and work does not necessarily lead to reduced expectation of success, if the students at the same time are presented with strategies for how to cope with the workload. Educational choice is a continuous process. The discussion chapter suggests that recruitment initiatives should give realistic information about the variety of STEM career options that exist, in order to help students make more well-informed choices. By providing trustworthy information and using role models that young students can identify with, recruitment initiatives can help more students complete the study programmes they embark upon.

Considerable resources are spent on initiatives aiming to increase achievement and participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Drawing on focus group interviews and a questionnaire study with participants in ENT3R, a Norwegian out-of-school mathematics program, we investigated why participants attended and stayed in this program and assessed how it influenced participants’ STEM motivation. The authors identified 3 aspects of ENT3R highlighted by the participants: The instructors provided good teaching, the instructors created a positive atmosphere, and the instructors engaged in interpersonal relationships. Moreover, drawing on the expectancy-value model, the authors found that ENT3R appeared to influence 5 factors in the model that are important for STEM motivation: expectation of success, interest–enjoyment value, attainment value, utility value, and cost. This study points to the importance of carefully recruited and trained instructors and of flexible, responsively designed extracurricular programs.

This report is the outcome of an independent impact assessment of the ENT3R programme. The study was carried out by the SINTEF research copany.  Among their reported findings were positive effects on participating pupils` motivation, grades and interests in STEM subjects. The reported effects were greater among high achievement students as compared to pupils with lower levels of achievement.