Understanding teachers’ conceptions surrounding integrated STEM education is vital to the successful implementation of integrated STEM curricula in K-12 classrooms. Of particular interest is understanding how teachers conceptualize the role of the STEM disciplines within their integrated STEM teaching. Further, despite knowing that content-agnostic characteristics of integrated STEM education are important, little is known about how teachers conceptualize the real-world problems, 21st century skills, and the promotion of STEM careers in their integrated STEM instruction. This study used an exploratory case study design to investigate conceptions of 19 K-12 science teachers after participating in an integrated STEM-focused professional development and implementing integrated STEM lessons into their classrooms. Our findings show that all teacher participants viewed STEM education from an integrative perspective that fosters the development of 21st century skills, using real-world problems to motivate students. Our findings also reveal that teachers have varying ideas related to the STEM disciplines within integrated STEM instruction, which could assist teacher educators in preparing high-quality professional development experiences. Findings related to real-world problems, 21st century skills, and STEM careers provide a window into how to best support teachers to include these characteristics into their teaching more explicitly.

Previous studies reported relatively low correlation coefficients between students’ high school science experiences and their science identities. This needs more exploratory studies to investigate the reasons for these low correlation coefficients. This article presents the high school science experiences of three non-science major undergraduate students and the influence from their experiences, in their perspective, on their choice of a non-science major in college. Three female Hispanic non-science major undergraduate students were interviewed about their high school science experiences. Data were analyzed to answer the research question: From three female Hispanic students’ perspectives, what are some factors from high school science experiences that influenced students’ choice of non-science majors in college studies, particularly some specific factors related to their Hispanic cultural backgrounds and gender role. The most mentioned influential factor among three participants was didactic teaching styles of their high school science teachers. Another important finding was low performance/self-efficacy in math may predict students’ low interest/persistence in science but high performance/self-efficacy in math does not necessarily predict students’ high interest/persistence in science.

The dissertation, with a collected papers approach, focused on evaluating the implementation of MI curriculum in high school Biology I classes in south Florida. The dissertation included the development and validation of the Biology Identity and Persistence Survey (BIPS), the connection of instructors’ teaching practices with students’ biology identities, evolution identities, and career aspirations, and the connection of instructors’ teaching practice with students’ conceptual understanding in evolution. In the first part of the dissertation study, the BIPS was validated through expert review and student cognitive interviews for its face and content validity. Confirmatory factor analysis addressed the construct validity of the final version of the BIPS, after removing four problematic items. The Cronbach’s alpha and test-retest reliability analysis indicated that the BIPS was a reliable instrument in terms of its internal reliability and stability. In the second part of the dissertation study, the comparison between the MI and non-MI classes indicated that there was no detectable significant difference between the MI classes and non-MI classes in students’ development of biology identities and evolution identities, and shifts in career aspirations. Using the analysis of the MI and non-MI instructors’ teaching practices, it was suggested that the use of intentional lack of inquiry closure, seeding, small-group collaboration, whole-class discussion, and Socratic questioning might contribute to students’ biology/evolution identity development. In the third part of the dissertation study, the Evolution Concept Inventory was demonstrated as an invalid and unreliable research instrument. Qualitative analysis of instructors’ teaching practices suggested that interactions between MI instructional materials and MI pedagogical techniques, including student-centered teaching, small-group collaboration, student-student interaction, whole-class discussion, and Socratic questioning, might contribute to students’ gain of conceptual understanding in evolution. On the basis of the research findings, this dissertation provided suggestions for high school biology MI instructors and high school biology MI workshops.