Abstract:

The purpose of this research is to determine the interest of secondary school students interests in STEM professions. In this quantitative research, cross-sectional survey research model was used. The target of the study consisted of 834 secondary school students at 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade who were studying in four different public secondary schools in the central district of Çanakkale. In this study, "Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Career Interest Survey" developed by Kier, Blanchard, Osborne, and Albert (2014) for secondary school students and adapted to Turkish by Koyunlu-Ünlü, Dökme, and Ünlü (2016) was used. In this study, the overall measurement reliability of the scale was .91, and Cronbach α values for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics subscales were .88, .87, .90 and .91 respectively. The data obtained were evaluated by using the SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) package program with t-test and variance analysis (ANOVA). Students' interest in STEM professions was significantly different according to gender and grade level variables. It was also concluded that students' interests in science sub-dimension of STEM significantly differentiate by gender, the perceived most successful lesson, grade level variables; the interests in technology sub-dimension significantly differentiate by gender, owning a computer or tablet, or study room, grade level variables; the interests in engineering sub-dimension significantly differentiate by gender variable; the interests in mathematics sub-dimension significantly differentiate by the perceived most successful lesson, grade level variables. Suggestions for the results have been presented.

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