Attitudes of secondary school STEM teachers towards supervising research and design activities

Research and design activities are important focus points in international policies for secondaryScience, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education. It is up to schoolteachers to implement and supervise these activities in the STEM classroom. However, notmuch is known about the attitudes teachers hold towards supervising research projects or designprojects. In this study, a questionnaire to measure teacher attitudes towards supervising researchactivities and design activities in secondary school was completed by 130 Dutch teachers whotaught the relatively new Dutch STEM subjects O&O (research and design) and NLT (nature,life, and technology). These integrated STEM subjects are project and context based and aretaught in a limited number of schools. Important differences between these integrated STEMsubjects are their student and teacher populations: NLT is taught in grades 10–12 by teacherswith a qualification in a science subject, while O&O is taught in grades 7–12 and can be givenby any teacher in secondary school. The results showed that on average, both O&O and NLTteachers had high self-efficacy scores on supervising research and design projects even whenthey had received no special education in doing so. Furthermore, the teachers in general viewedsupervising research projects as a more relevant activity than supervising design. Since researchand design activities are becoming more important in (inter)national curriculum standards,STEM teacher education and subsequent professional development should not only familiarizeteachers with supervising research projects, but with design projects as well.Teaching and Teacher Learning (ICLON