The impact of high school science pedagogieson students' STEM career interest and on their ratings of teacher quality

<p>This study examines the often-heard assumption in science teaching that  some pedagogies in science classrooms can serve a dual function—improve  the student-perceived teacher quality and improve students' affinity to  STEM professions. We asked 7507 freshmen from 40 colleges in the United  States, selected in a stratified random procedure, to retrospectively  report their experiences of a list of 32 pedagogies during high school  biology, chemistry, and physics classes. Our survey also asked students  to rate each teachers' quality and to report their Science, Technology,  Engineering, or Mathematics career interests at the beginning and end of  high school. We found that teachers' chosen pedagogies, on the whole,  had a stronger impact on how students rated them than on students'  career interests. Interestingly, we also found considerable differences  between the disciplines. </p>