Infusing Humanities in STEM Education: Student Opinions of Disciplinary Connections in an Introductory Chemistry Course

Abstract

The Next Generation Science Standards and other educational reforms support the formation of deep connections across the STEM disciplines. Integrated STEM is considered as a best practice by the educational communities of the disparate disciplines. However, the integration of non-STEM disciplines is understudied and generally limited to the integration of art (STEAM). Humanistic STEM blends the study of STEM with interest in and concern for human affairs, welfare, values, or culture. This study looks at an infusion of the humanities into an online chemistry course to see if there is an influence on student connection between course content and cross-disciplinary perspectives. Specifically, students were asked about the course making clear connection to STEM disciplines, between science and non-science, between science and the real world, and a widened perspective of science connection other courses in their degree programs. Items on a Likert scale were presented as part of the end of course evaluations and yielded 59 responses. Although no statistically significant difference in the pre- and post-infusion agreement, it is evident that the additional perspectives did no harm. The positive movement in this pilot study encourages further investigation with stronger infusions of both STEM and humanities content.