Engineering Professional Development: Elementary Teachers' Self-efficacy and Sources of Self-efficacy

TL;DRAbstract

Currently, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) is a popular buzz word in P -12 education as it represents a means to advance American competitiveness in the global economy. Proponents of the engineering component of STEM advocate additional benefits in teaching engineering, such as its capacity to engage students in collaboration, and to apply critical thinking, systems thinking, negotiation, and communication skills to solve real-life contextual problems. Establishing a strong foundation of engineering knowledge at a young age will provide students with internal motivation as it taps into their curiosity toward how things work, and it also prepares them for secondary science courses. Successful STEM education is often constrained by elementary teachers' low perception of self-efficacy to teach science and engineering. Elementary teachers with low self-efficacy in science are more likely to spend less instructional time teaching science, which suggests that teacher

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