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Recruiting Science Majors into Secondary Science Teaching: Paid Internships in Informal Science Settings

Summary

Despite the importance of recruiting highly qualified individuals into the science teaching profession, little is known about the effectiveness of particular recruitment strategies. Over 3 years, 34 college science majors and undecided students were recruited into paid internships in informal science settings to consider secondary science teaching as a career. Analysis of interns’ subsequent career plans revealed the internships were not effective in recruiting the interns into the secondary science teacher education program, although many interns thought they
might consider becoming teachers later in their lives. Reasons for not pursuing teaching included continued indecisiveness, inflexibility of required plans of study, and concerns about teachers’ pay and classroom management.

Authors

Heather Worsham, Patricia Friedrichsen, Marilyn Soucie, Ellen Barnett, Motoko Akiba

Organization/Affiliation

University of Missouri, Trinity University, Florida State University

Year

2013

Noyce Award Number

0934839

Grade Level

Undergraduate-level (initial teacher preparation)

Discipline

Science

Resource Type

Article - Peer-reviewed Journal

URL

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10972-013-9360-1

Citation

Worsham, H.M., Friedrichsen, P., Soucie, M., Barnett, E., & Akiba, M. (2013). Recruiting Science Majors into Secondary Science Teaching: Paid Internships in Informal Science Settings. Journal of Science Teacher Education 25, 53-77.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant Numbers DUE- 2041597 and DUE-1548986. Any opinions, findings, interpretations, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of its authors and do not represent the views of the AAAS Board of Directors, the Council of AAAS, AAAS’ membership or the National Science Foundation.