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Identifying 21st Century STEM Competencies Using Workplace Data

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Abstract

Gaps between science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and required workplace skills have been identified in industry, academia, and government. Educators acknowledge the need to reform STEM education to better prepare students for their future careers. We pursue this growing interest in the skills needed for STEM disciplines and ask whether frameworks for 21st century skills and engineering education cover all of important STEM competencies. In this study, we identify important STEM competencies and evaluate the relevance of current frameworks applied in education using the standardized job-specific database operated and maintained by the US Department of Labor. Our analysis of the importance of 109 skills, types of knowledge and work activities, revealed 18 skills, seven categories of knowledge, and 27 work activities important for STEM workers. We investigate the perspectives of STEM and non-STEM job incumbents, comparing the importance of each skill, knowledge, and work activity for the two groups. We aimed to condense dimensions of the 52 key areas by categorizing them according to the Katz and Kahn (1978) framework and testing for inter-rater reliability. Our findings show frameworks for 21st century skills and engineering education do not encompass all important STEM competencies. Implications for STEM education programs are discussed, including how they can bridge gaps between education and important workplace competencies.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Mazur group in Harvard University, especially Professor Eric Mazur for discussion, encouragement, and support; Professor Hyewon Kim, Jung Bog Kim, and Minsu Ha for important, practical feedback on analysis; and physics education researchers and educators in the workshop of Physics careers and majors in AAPT 2015 summer meeting.

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  1. John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA

    Hyewon Jang

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  1. Hyewon Jang
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Correspondence to Hyewon Jang.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 7, 8, and 9.

Table 7 Important skills in STEM disciplines: operational definitions, mean, and standard deviations
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Table 8 Important knowledge in STEM disciplines: operational definitions, mean, and standard deviations
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Table 9 Important work activities in STEM disciplines: operational definitions, mean, and standard deviations
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Jang, H. Identifying 21st Century STEM Competencies Using Workplace Data. J Sci Educ Technol 25, 284–301 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-015-9593-1

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