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1. STEM Identity Development: Leveraging Teacher STEM Identity to Design Activities for Students

   https://doi.org/10.1080/1046560X.2026.2654360  

   Pallant, Amy; Lord, Trudi; Lore, Christopher; Lee, Hee-Sun (April 2026, Journal of Science Teacher Education)

   Developing students’ STEM identities and career awareness within a science discipline can be challenging for teachers as STEM identity extends beyond speciwc content expertise and traditional pedagogical skills. This study investigated how teachers’ STEM identities along with their shared understanding of the goals for including STEM identity activities in a geoscience curriculum unit contributed to the design of classroom activities intended to develop their students’ STEM identi- ties. Data for this study includes video recordings from a teacher professional development workshop in which six middle school tea- chers from a large district in central California explored their own STEM identities, survey data on students’ STEM identities, and artifacts from co-designed activities tailored to teachers’ classes. Results reveal that teachers’ STEM identities signiwcantly inbuence how they support the development of students’ STEM identities. In addition, providing tea- chers with the opportunity to describe their own STEM identity led to meaningful focus for the co-design process. Finally, while the focus of this workshop was a geoscience unit, this study argues that the co- design process as applied to STEM identity activities can apply to other STEM topics. 

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2. Unlocking STEM Identities Through Family Conversations About Topics in and Beyond STEM: The Contributions of Family Communication Patterns

   https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15020106  

   Dou, Remy; Villa, Nicole; Cian, Heidi; Sunbury, Susan; Sadler, Philip M; Sonnert, Gerhard (February 2025, Behavioral Sciences)

   Research shows that family conversations about STEM topics positively influence children’s STEM identity development. This study expands on these findings by exploring how family conversations beyond STEM content contribute to this development. Specifically, we focus on how non-academic forms of family support—as described by students who face systemic racial discrimination in STEM—shape these conversations. In this way, we extend existing work by exploring the extent to which families’ dispositions to talk about a wide range of topics—not just in STEM—might further support youth identification with STEM fields. Using Family Communication Patterns Theory (FCPT) to guide our analysis, we examined data from a survey of first-year college students (n = 1134) attending Minority-Serving Institutions and public universities in the United States. The survey asked students to reflect on their childhood conversations and their current sense of identity in STEM. Using structural equation modeling, we found that family disposition to engage in conversations about a broad range of topics was linked to more frequent STEM-related conversations during childhood and, in turn, greater identification as a “STEM person” in college. These findings highlight the complex ways that family communication patterns can support construction of an individual’s sense of themselves as a STEM person in later years. By interpreting these findings using FCPT, we highlight the nature of family communication patterns that can contribute to STEM identity formation. 

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3. Development and Validation of the STEM Study Strategies Questionnaire for STEM College Students

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--32345  

   Bradford, Brittany; Beier, Margaret; Wolf, Michael; McSpedon, Megan; Saterbak, Ann (July 2019, American Society for Engineering Education)

   In this research-based paper, we discuss the development of a measure of Rice University students’ STEM study strategies and then explore the measure’s correlation with several important psychological outcomes in a sample of underprepared first-year STEM students (n=94). STEM attrition remains a pressing concern nationally, particularly for students who took less rigorous STEM courses in high school, a population that disproportionally comprises underrepresented minorities. The authors developed an 11-item measure of STEM-specific study strategies, termed the STEM Study Strategies Questionnaire. We explored STEM-specific identity, self-efficacy, and career aspirations, as well as perceived utility of attaining a STEM degree, using a model based on Eccles and Wigfield’s (2002) expectancy-value framework of achievement. An exploratory factor analysis found a four-factor solution to the newly developed scale: Group Work in STEM, Active STEM Learning, Interactions with STEM Professors, and STEM Exam Familiarity. The authors found significant moderate to strong correlations among all psychological variables, as well as with the Group Work and STEM Exam Familiarity factors. Next steps for this research are to develop further measure items to capture each of the four factors and to conduct confirmatory analyses on different samples of STEM students, both those who are relatively underprepared and appropriately prepared for college STEM coursework. 

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4. STEM Identities: A Communication Theory of Identity Approach

   https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X211030674  

   Stewart, Craig O. (July 2021, Journal of Language and Social Psychology)

   null (Ed.)

   Education and psychology research has established STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) identities as an important factor in explaining student persistence in STEM fields. Few studies in social psychology of language or communication have investigated STEM identities, despite the fundamentally communicative nature of identity. Identity talk produced in semi-structured interviews with undergraduate engineering majors ( N = 16) at three U.S. universities was analyzed qualitatively using the Communication Theory of Identity (CTI) as a sensitizing framework. The analysis showed that these students’ STEM identities emphasized personal attributes such as work ethic and a desire to make a positive difference in the world as well as relationships with peers in engineering. A number of potential identity gaps which might present barriers to forming a STEM identity were also evident in the data. These results underscore the importance of a communicative (interactive and relational) perspective in understanding students’ development and expression of STEM identities. 

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5. Undergraduate STEM Majors on and off the Pre-Med/Health Track: A STEM Identity Perspective

   https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.20-12-0281  

   Dou, Remy; Cian, Heidi; Espinosa-Suarez, Valentina (June 2021, CBE—Life Sciences Education)

   Offerdahl, Erika (Ed.)

   Despite the wealth of research exploring science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) identity and career goals in both formal and informal settings, existing literature does not consider STEM identity for undergraduate students pursuing health and medical careers through STEM pathways. We address this gap by examining the STEM identity of undergraduate STEM majors on pre-med/health tracks as it compares with that of other STEM majors, thus focusing on a population that is chronically understudied in STEM education research. We surveyed 440 undergraduate STEM students enrolled in entry-level STEM courses to assess their STEM identities and three identity precursors: interest, performance–competence, and recognition. Through regression analyses accounting for gender, major, and perceived home support around STEM, we found that pre-med/health students were more likely to have higher STEM identity and recognition scores than their peers; we did not detect a significant difference for performance–competence or interest in STEM. Although there is little tracking of pre-med/health students’ ultimate career attainment, the implications of our findings support a potential for sustaining pre-med/health students while simultaneously creating pathways to other STEM pursuits for the nearly 60% of those who do not enter medical school by offering participation in experiences that affirm their STEM identities. 

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