This dissertation investigates the intersection of economics of innovation and human capital development to understand how to empower individuals and marginalized communities to be directed to innovation and STEM disciplines. The research focuses on three main chapters: Chapter 1 examines the effectiveness of an education program in teaching and…

This study was conducted to investigate whether the STEM career interests and innovation skill levels of 8th grade students differ significantly according to some demographic variables. The research was the correlational model. The data of the study were collected from a total of 1427 students from 20 different schools in five randomly selected…

Teaching and learning in the 21st century should equip students with critical and creative thinking skills to be ready to live and contribute productively to society. One suitable learning approach is integrating STEAM education and computational thinking--the STEAM-CT approach. The present study aims to describe students' critical and creative…

Integrated STEAM education (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) has been shown to effectively foster global competencies as well as school and societal engagement for 21st century learners of diverse backgrounds. However, facilitating quality STEAM teaching and learning can be challenging for teachers, particularly in the area…

Emerging research points to the importance of developing the capacities of teachers to help their students to be creative risk takers and to learn from productive failure. Facilitating this creative risk taking in learners has been shown to require expertise and a degree of risk taking on the part of both teachers and educational leaders. This…

Mendelian genetics are essential for students seeking to comprehend the complexities of inheritance; although fundamental, these biology concepts are difficult for students to understand. This study examined the effectiveness of task-based learning (TBL) in enhancing the students' conceptual understanding of the Patterns of Mendelian Genetics. A…

Although self-directed learning is considered important in both educational practice and theory as a 21st century skill and as a means to motivate students, most teachers find it difficult to integrate self-directed learning into their practice. An instrumental case study was conducted to investigate how teachers at four innovative Dutch secondary…

This paper reports a design and implementation of a STEM enrichment programme infused with affective elements designed for Hong Kong students. Specifically, it features a design-thinking approach to develop solutions to a self-selected problem addressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Around 30 upper primary school (grades 5 to…

Purpose: The role of Teacher Innovative Behavior (TIB), in responding to systemic problems in educational systems and promoting "intrapreneurial" behavior has been recognized in recent times. A robust instrument that can help administrators and teacher educators gauge the levels of TIB among their teachers will facilitate the promotion…

Many students do not experience usefulness in mathematics. To address this problem, we offered them a mathematical tool, Sankey diagrams, which is a flow chart appearing in news media to visualize social, industrial or environmental processes. We carried out an Educational Design Research (EDR) to develop and evaluate lesson materials about…

Theories of creativity and empirical evidence have highlighted the importance of autonomy as a motivational source of creativity. However, we know little about the relationship between the implicit autonomy motive and creativity. Using a multi-method multi-informant design, we investigated the relationship between implicit autonomy motives and…

STEM education was a systematic teaching and/or learning process in the STEM fields and a positive correlation existed between STEM education, and the economic prosperity and power of a nation in the globalized world. In recent years, rising concerns have emerged about American STEM education. Many stakeholders wondered that whether the nation has…

This case study research reports on elementary (grade 8) and secondary school (grade 9) teachers' participation in job-embedded, professional learning and engagement in collaborative inquiry. Teachers constructed an inquiry-oriented media literacy unit following the collaborative inquiry model. The current study sought to investigate how…

Science education in China is Subject Matter Knowledge (SMK) oriented in that SMK understanding is the major benchmark to assess students' achievement in science learning. Such an orientation causes students to overemphasize the memorization of SMK and neglect other indispensable components of science, such as scientific attitudes and research…

School-based curriculum innovations, including those in science education, are usually not adequately evaluated, if at all. Furthermore, current procedures and instruments for programme evaluations are often unable to support evidence-based decision-making. We suggest that adopting fidelity of implementation (FOI) criteria from healthcare research…