Affect and engagement in STEM education

The current interest and focus on STEM education is largely a response to affective issues related to participation and engagement in mathematics and science. Concerns about low levels of interest and engagement are key factors in students opting out of these subjects, attaining low levels of achievement leading to declining enrolments and concerns about shortages in people taking up STEM-focused careers. This has created a sense of urgency and stakeholders have seen STEM education as a way to ameliorate these issues and concerns. However, the issues are, at least partially, fundamentally affective in nature, and so the response of educators to the current crisis must also be 'affective'. In this chapter, we examine the philosophical and theoretical foundations of current STEM education approaches, and then interrogate current research relating to STEM education, with a particular focus on Australia, to examine whether affective issues are central in current STEM initiatives.