The impact of an outreach activity on girls’ attitudes towards STEM: An Irish primary school case study

Research suggests that children as young as 6 years old could begin to develop a negative attitude towards the STEM disciplines and this results in disengagement and loss of interest in these areas, particularly for girls. Finding ways to address this apparent lack of interest among young students is critical as reports highlight a lack of students coming through the STEM ‘pipeline’ and pursuing careers in STEM. Our investigative study explored the impact of utilising a STEM outreach activity in an attempt to ascertain its impact on primary school girls’ attitudes towards STEM in Ireland. A survey was used to collect data on the students’ attitudes toward STEM prior to engaging with the outreach activity and then immediately upon completing the activity. Results reveal that the attitude of the students was initially positive towards STEM and remained so for the duration of the outreach activity, although there was a significant decline in their attitude towards science. This research highlights valuable insights regarding the potential benefits to students of engaging in outreach activities from an early age but also alludes to the risk of overshadowing of individual disciplines that can occur when analysing the disciplines as a combined ‘meta-discipline’.