Innovative STEM Curriculum to Enhance Students’ Engineering Design Skills and Attitudes Towards STEM

Abstract

Although STEM education has been advocated internationally, the integration of interdisciplinary learning into STEM education and the gender disparity in the STEM field are challenging. Our research team in Taiwan developed a female-friendly and innovative STEM curriculum with flat (rather than bulky) speakers to enhance male and female students’ creativity in developing new technology and to foster their interdisciplinary thinking. Participating year 10 students were encouraged in the 3-hour course to integrate science knowledge into their engineering design processes in order to better develop, evaluate, and revise their technology products. In this study, we examined this STEM curriculum to show the progression of male and female students’ engineering designs and their attitudes towards STEM. Through the systematic guidance of the STEM curriculum, students’ engineering designs improved, regardless of gender. There were no significant differences between male and female students’ performance in engineering design in each stage of the STEM curriculum, However, in terms of the improvement in engineering design ability, female students did not improve whereas their male counterparts did in some activities. Participating in the STEM curriculum developed by this study increased the positive attitudes of both male and female students towards STEM and STEM learning. It also reduced the attitude gap between the two genders seen before the course in the technology dimension. The study findings can contribute to the development of better ways of integrating interdisciplinary learning and teaching and enhancing male and female students’ engineering designs and attitudes towards STEM.KeywordsPhysicsEngineering designAttitudes towards STEMCurriculum designAssessment of STEM learning