The influence of UAE schools initiatives on high-school students’ STEM career aspirations

Areej ElSayary

doi:10.29333/ejmste/12913

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Areej ElSayary ¹ ^*

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¹ College of Interdisciplinary Studies, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE^* Corresponding Author

Abstract

Students’ science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career aspirations are influenced by the cultural, cognitive, and contextual factors that affect their self-efficacy, outcomes, expectation, motivation, interests, and choices (Lent et al., 1994). This study investigates the influence of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) schools on high school students’ STEM career aspirations. UAE schools are considered the cultural factor, where many new initiatives and policies take place, such as the science, technology, and innovation policy and new high school equivalency policy. In this study, the students’ STEM career aspirations involved the cognitive factor and the contextual factor. The participants were high school students (n₁=330) and teachers (n₂=10) from different schools across UAE. A concurrent mixed-methods approach used quantitative data (online survey) and qualitative analysis (semi-structured interviews). The results reveal new initiatives in schools have a strong positive impact on students’ STEM career aspirations. However, some gaps occurred where recommendations were made.

Keywords

cultural influence
cognitive influence
contextual influence
career aspirations
STEM

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed, 2023, Volume 19, Issue 2, Article No: em2225

https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12913

Publication date: 01 Feb 2023

Online publication date: 30 Jan 2023

Article Views: 1158

Article Downloads: 864

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How to cite this article

APA

ElSayary, A. (2023). The influence of UAE schools initiatives on high-school students’ STEM career aspirations. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 19(2), em2225. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12913

Vancouver

ElSayary A. The influence of UAE schools initiatives on high-school students’ STEM career aspirations. EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed. 2023;19(2):em2225. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12913

AMA

ElSayary A. The influence of UAE schools initiatives on high-school students’ STEM career aspirations. EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed. 2023;19(2), em2225. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12913

Chicago

ElSayary, Areej. "The influence of UAE schools initiatives on high-school students’ STEM career aspirations". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education 2023 19 no. 2 (2023): em2225. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12913

Harvard

ElSayary, A. (2023). The influence of UAE schools initiatives on high-school students’ STEM career aspirations. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 19(2), em2225. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12913

MLA

ElSayary, Areej "The influence of UAE schools initiatives on high-school students’ STEM career aspirations". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, vol. 19, no. 2, 2023, em2225. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12913