Scientific advocacy and outreach programs are encouraged to increase public understanding of scientific knowledge and generate interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers. However, evaluation of these events' effectiveness is difficult and somewhat rare. This study's purpose was to better understand how effective…

Early exposure to engineering and mathematics career opportunities has been indicated to influence students' decisions regarding their academic majors and career goals. This study utilized mixed methods to analyze how changes in middle school students' affective characteristics might be linked to their future career decision-making, following…

Within the education field, international partnerships to address career development have been successful around the world (Brown, Bim Rose, & Hughes, 2005; Nazali, 2007; Prideaux, Patton, & Creed, 2002; Repetto, 2001). Career development programming impacts the educational development for children and adolescents (Gottfredson, 1981;…

Research suggests that a girl's career interests in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) declines between grades 6 and 8. Similarly, in middle school, there is a decrease in physical activity among girls. Researchers at the University of Rhode Island (URI) conducted a chemistry-based science camp that took place…

There has been a call for a more systematic research focus on the career development of children from diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, with the viewpoint that children's career development research needs to be contextually grounded in the countries and cultures where such development occurs. This article describes the occupational…

A Draw an Engineer Test was used to capture the perceptions of engineering held by two similar groups of 6th grade African-American students. Forty-four students who had graduate level engineers in their classrooms during a prior school year as part of a GK-12 project were matched to 44 students who had not. Matching criteria included race,…

The present study examined the occupational aspirations and career development influences of children attending Years 6 and 7 at a sample of rural and remote primary schools in the central western region of Queensland. Data was collected by means of the "Revised Career Awareness Survey" (McMahon & Patton, 2001). Australian and New…

A sixth grade class is asked: "When should you start thinking about and planning for college?" Most students answer with "tenth or eleventh grade," but invariably some brave soul raises a hand and tentatively responds with more of a question than an answer: "Now?" Yes, now. In 1992, Sallie Mae, the nation's largest…