ORIGINAL ARTICLE High School Students that Consider Choosing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Fields for their University Education#1 Esra Kızılay1*, Havva Yamak2, Nusret Kavak3 1Department of Science Education, Erciyes University, Kayseri, Turkey, 2Department of Science Education, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey, 3Department of Chemistry Education, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey *Corresponding Author: [email protected] # A version of this paper was presented at the 2018 World STEM Education Conference held in Istanbul Aydin University Florya Campus, Istanbul, Turkey. ABSTRACT The purposes of this study were to determine whether the departments that high school students consider choosing for their university education belong to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields or not and to reveal the relationship between their choice and gender, grade, and type of institution. The research was conducted during the second semester of 2016–2017 academic year with 2129 students from five public schools located in the Kocasinan and Melikgazi districts of the Kayseri Province in Turkey. Data were collected through a survey instrument requesting students’ demographic information and the departments that they selected for university education. Afterward, the departments mentioned by the students were coded as STEM-related and STEM-unrelated departments. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS 22.0 Statistic Software and frequencies, percentages, and Chi-square analysis were employed. Significant relationships were found between grade, gender, type of institution, and considering STEM-related department for university education. As a result, this study recommends that informative and stimulating activities involving STEM departments of universities should be organized for senior high school students to promote STEM fields. KEY WORDS: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields; gender; university preference; high school students; profession selection INTRODUCTION et al., 2017; Frey, 2011; Hejazi, 2011; Pring et al., 2017; Talwar and Hancock, 2010; UKCES, 2014; U.S. Bureau of Labor owadays, professionals who specialize in science, Statistics, 2018; Wagner, 2011). Therefore, we would argue technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) that many of the professionals who will be working in future fields are seen as one of the most important factors for N occupations would be composed mostly of STEM field related a country’s innovation and economic development (Carnevale professionals. However, in Turkey, the workforce involved et al., 2018; PwC Turkey and TUSIAD, 2017). The individuals in STEM fields and the number of students who prefer these who are able to keep pace with the progresses and changes of fields is insufficient. today’s digital era, which is very rich in terms of information and technology, are expected to be STEM employees who In Turkey, the employment in STEM fields and the number of possess the 21st century skills. These skills are namely students who prefer these fields is quite low. The review of the innovation, creativity, communication, problem solving, and occupational distribution of STEM fields in Turkey reveals that critical thinking (Beers, 2018; NCREL and Metiri Group, 2003; the employment in professions such as physics, mathematics, P21, 2016; World Economic Forum, 2015). engineering, and software development is quite low (Ercan, 2011; ISKUR, 2017a; 2017b). These results are similar for the Many occupations are likely to emerge or are even expected students who are enrolled in the university for these subjects. for the future. Research has noted what constitutes STEM An analysis of new students to higher education shows that field professions such as programming and software the number of students who are registered in the science, development, nuclear engineering, aerospace engineering, mathematics, statistics, information and communication digital archaeologist, brain signal decoding, augmented technologies, and engineering departments is quite low reality architecture, financial technology expertise, wind (OECD, 2017; YOK, 2017). Moreover, the attendance to these turbine service technician, robot consulting, synthetic life fields is also low in terms of the number of current students engineering, cyber city analyst, and digital tailoring (Bakhshi (YOK, 2017). To promote students’ engagement toward STEM 4 Science Education International ¦ Volume 30 ¦ Issue 1 Kızılay et al.: High School Students that Consider Choosing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Fields for their University Education fields and to increase the employment in STEM areas, further Based on the report published by the Kayseri Provincial studies that provide guidance to potential activities are needed. National Education Directorate (2016), the number of students in public schools was found to be 71,221. The formula A review of studies conducted in Turkey indicates that there suggested by Cochran (1962 as cited in Balci, 2011) was are some studies which have investigated the factors affecting used to determine the sample size required to represent this university students’ preferences. There are studies involving population. The minimum sample size for 95% confidence particular departments such as medicine (Genc et al., 2007), interval and at 0.05 tolerance level was found to be 382. This teaching (Akbayir, 2002; Kaya et al., 2013; Ozsoy et al., study’s sample was 2129 high school students from five schools 2010), nursing (Citak et al., 2010), health (Ciftci et al., 2011), from the three institution types. Demographic characteristics economics and administrative sciences (Akar, 2012), or overall of the students included in the research are given in Table 1. preferences (Demirci, 2017; Kars et al., 2014; Korkut et al., 2012; Sarikaya and Khorshid, 2009). Among these studies, the Table 1 shows that 38.5% of the students were male and percentage of those focusing on higher education is low. There 61.5% were female. Most of the participants were studying at is a dearth of studies involving the university departments that Anatolian High School. In addition, regarding the distribution high school students tend to choose. of the students according to grade, the lowest participation was from 12th grade. Similarly, this is a body of related literature about STEM careers of Turkish students (Korkut and Mutlu, 2016; Korkut Data Collection Tool and Data Analysis and Eraslan, 2018; Koyunlu et al., 2016; Yerdelen et al., 2016). The gender, school, and grade information of the participating However, there is a significant gap in terms of the research high school students were collected as demographic focusing on the preferences of high school students’ toward characteristic. In addition, students were asked to write the STEM field for the university. This study is expected to make department that they were considering for university. a move toward diminishing the existing gap. Accordingly, The departments that these participating students considered the purpose of this study was to determine the university for their university education were coded as STEM related or departments that high school students consider choosing for STEM unrelated, according to Table 2. Noonan (2017) report their university education, identifying whether they belong to compiled a standardized list of undergraduate departments STEM field, and revealing the relationships between students’ for STEM-related fields of study. As such, Table 2 was used preferences and gender, grade, and type of institution. for the classification and coding of the departments that this study’s participating students selected for their university METHODOLOGY education. SPSS 22 software was used for the analysis of this Research Design data. Frequencies, percentages, and Chi-square analysis were This research was conducted using a cross-sectional descriptive employed in data analysis. research design, which is a non-experimental quantitative research design. This design is used to describe the status of FINDINGS the data within a relatively short time period (Johnson and Departments that Students Consider to Choose for University Christensen, 2014). In this research, students’ STEM field Education and Preferences toward STEM Departments preferences were analyzed through the data obtained over The frequency and percentages of the departments that a short time period; therefore, cross-sectional descriptive students considered for university education (from students’ research design was employed. Universe and Sample Table 1: Demographic characteristics of the students In descriptive research, a sample is selected from the wider included in the sample of the research population. The characteristics of the sample are explored and inferences are made from the sample about the characteristics Demographic characteristics Number of of the wider population (Johnson and Christensen, 2014). In students (%) this context, the population of the research was set as high Gender schools students in public schools in the Kayseri Province Male 819 (38.5) of Turkey. Female 1310 (61.5) Grade Research data were obtained from five public high schools 9 588 (27.6) located in the Kocasinan and Melikgazi districts of the 10 783 (36.8) Kayseri Province in Turkey, during the second semester of 11 494 (23.2) the 2016–2017 academic year. The required permissions had 12 264 (12.4) been granted from the Kayseri Provincial National Education Institute