Students reported that their science teacherswere themost influential factor in developing STEM
interest, a finding consistent with Microsoft Corporation (2011) reporting that more than half of
STEM college students indicated an interest in STEM derived from their secondary school science
teacher or course. The identification of science teachers is not surprising, particularly in light of the
high percentages of students reporting prior experiences with science fair projects and Science
Olympiads. More than 86 % of the respondents indicated participation in more than two, and 73 %
in more than three science fair projects prior to I-SWEEEP. High participation in these types of
projects corresponds to multiple opportunities for students to interact with their teachers after school
and in traveling to competitions together. Further, teachers would likely have provided help and
guidance as students prepared their science projects, thus providing multiple opportunities for
students to learn from their teachers via observation, imitation, and modeling, much as Bandura
(1977) posited in his social cognitive theory.
While national STEM matriculation statistics indicate that less than 33 % of high school
students matriculate in STEM-related majors (National Center for Education Statistics 2009),
about half of our respondents identified personal interests in STEM subjects as another factor
influencing their decisions to consider a major in STEM. Our findings are congruent with
Maltese and Tai’s (2011) study, which reported that a majority of students concentrating in
STEM majors had strong personal interests in mathematics and science while they were in
high school. Further, analyses in this study revealed that students who had experienced science
fairs for the first time in high school developed stronger interests in STEM areas. Maltese and
Tai’s findings also indicated that most students make their decisions about college majors in
high school, a contradiction to the general belief that students contemplate pursuit of a STEMrelated
major at earlier stages in their education (e.g., see Microsoft Corporation 2011).