Exploring Students' Perceptions of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) in Education and Future Careers Fields

Abstract

Student's understanding of STEM was a successful key in improving student achievement and STEM employment in the next ten years. This research was aimed to describe students' perceptions of STEM education and career. We used explanatory mixed method design. This research involving 315 senior high school students in Bandar Lampung. We adopted Perception of STEM Education and Career (PSEC) Questionaire, interview protocol, and voice recording devices. We analyzed the data by categorizing, tabulating, and validating the data. The result showed that students' perceptions about STEM education, based on the school location indicated positive perceptions, but based on the comparison of male and female students' perception, male students prefered to express negative responses in STEM learning interest, and based on the comparison of learning style (audio, visual, and kinesthetic) students perceptions, kinesthetic students perceptions, kinesthetic students prefered to express negative responses in STEM learning interest. Furthermore, the students' perceptions about STEM careers, based on the school locations, gender, and differences in learning styles indicated positive perceptions.