Characterising patterns of engagement of different participants in a public STEM-based analysis project

An analysis project undertaken in the context of a historic visitor site is described. The project offered different types of opportunity for scientific working, and involved four distinct groups of participants. Two distinguishing features of the different groups of participants were their primary motivation for engagement with the activity, and their level of previous engagement with formal science education. Participants in different parts of the project were assessed as to their level of science capital (Archer et al., 2015). Drawing upon engagement theory, the observable behaviours were used as an indicator of engagement and then categorised according to Pearson's (2010) taxonomy. The analysis showed that learner engagement was exhibited at different levels by the different categories of participants, with higher levels of engagement exhibited by participants with a higher level of science capital. Although there was general correlation between the level of science capital and the proportion of higher engagement learning behaviours, one group of participants deviated from this trend. The findings indicate that the level of science capital is a key determinant of engagement and associated learning behaviours, but did not completely account for participants’ engagement in the science outreach activity

Science capital or STEM capital? Exploring relationships between science capital and technology, engineering, and maths aspirations and attitudes among young people aged 17/18

We previously proposed that science capital (science‐related forms of cultural and social capital) can be used as a theoretical lens for explaining the patterned nature of aspirations and educational participation among young people aged 11–16. Building on these findings, the present article investigates whether science capital is related to post‐18 aspirations to pursue further STEM study and whether science capital can be extended to related disciplines including engineering, maths and technology. Specifically, we report on correlational analyses exploring the relationships between science, technology, engineering and maths attitudes and science capital. Drawing on data from a new survey of 7,013 17/18 year old English secondary school students, analyses showed that science capital, while strongly related to engineering and physical science future study aspirations, was not strongly related to the pursuit of either maths or technology postsecondary study. The findings also suggest that engineering and maths attitudes have a stronger relationship to science capital than attitudes relating to technology. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings and propose that science capital might be more usefully applied to “SEM,” with links to technology fields and aspirations needing further exploration