Australian politicians and major government reports keep emphasising the importance of STEM (or science, technology, engineering and maths) skills for our economy and society. As the Universities Accord report noted last month, engineering and and science are experiencing “significant skill shortages”. Then there is a federal goal to have 1.2 million tech-related jobs by 2030. This comes amid […] … learn more→

Ever since the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into orbit on Oct. 4, 1957, America has been struggling to recruit and retain STEM teachers in its public middle and high schools. In the 2017-2018 school year, approximately 100,000 teacher jobs in STEM – or science, technology, engineering and mathematics – went unfilled at the high school level. […] … learn more→

Women continue to be underrepresented in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) careers, and specifically in engineering. Numerous  initiatives are helping to attract more women to these careers; however, something seems to be wrong when they reach university, as they show a 23% higher dropout rate than men. Our recent study has investigated the reasons for abandonment, with the aim of designing effective measures to retain these […] … learn more→

Women in statistics classes do better academically than men over a semester despite having more negative attitudes regarding their own abilities, according to our recent study in the Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education. Using data from more than 100 male and female students from multiple statistics classes, my colleague and I assessed gender differences in grades over […] … learn more→

Despite various efforts to encourage more women to study STEM fields in college, the percentage of engineering bachelor’s degrees earned by women in the United States hasn’t increased much in the 21st century. Specifically, it has risen from 18% in 1998 to 22% in 2018. Of all the fields in STEM – or science, technology, engineering and […] … learn more→

Why in 2022 almost 75% of graduates in science, technology, engineering or mathematics in Spain are men? According to several studies carried out among high school students based on the Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (Index of Abbreviated Mathematical Anxiety, in Spanish), women show higher levels of anxiety than boys when faced with the forms of evaluation in math tests. From these investigations, […] … learn more→

Stereotypes about what boys and girls supposedly like aren’t hard to find. Toy advertisements send signals that science and electronic toys are intended for boys rather than girls. Computer scientists and engineers on television shows and movies are often white men, like the guys on “The Big Bang Theory.” Policymakers, teachers and parents sometimes subscribe to these stereotypes, too. They […] … learn more→

Back when I attended M.S. 101 in the Bronx, I tuned out the science teacher because I didn’t think science was for me. I viewed the subject as something distant and inaccessible. I never saw myself becoming a scientist. Things changed, however, when my physics teacher at Marie Curie High School used hip-hop to make […] … learn more→

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professions are still heavily male-dominated. Across all sectors, just over one in four STEM workers are women. The gender gap is even wider among students in post-secondary STEM courses. The STEM Equity Monitor reports: When considering university and VET together, in 2018 women comprised only 21% of total STEM course enrolments and […] … learn more→

Many educators, caregivers and students have been struggling with remote learning during the pandemic, especially the lack of hands-on learning experiences. We developed and are trying out a hybrid approach – with on-screen and off-screen time – that helps children learn engineering design practices at home. Engineering design practices are the steps engineers take to design a solution to a problem. […] … learn more→