The Effects of the Elementary School STEM Intervention Program on Students' Attitudes and Interests: The Application of Propensity Score Matching Technique

Abstract

There is a growing number of interventions intended to
increase students' STEM school achievement and their
interests in STEM careers. Conjointly, various methodological
challenges in designing, implementation and evaluation of
STEM interventions are recognized. In this paper, we
evaluated the effectiveness of one STEM intervention by
means of a quasi-experimental research design, on the
sample of 1484 elementary school students, age 10 to 12
years. The effectiveness of the intervention was measured by
change in attitudes toward scientists and by change in STEM
interests. We used the Propensity Score Matching (PSM)
technique to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention.
The results showed that the STEM intervention modestly
increased positive attitudes toward scientists in the whole
sample, and increased STEM interests of the youngest
students. The research has also shown that the PMS
technique has its application in evaluation studies of different
educational interventions.