Motivating and Supporting Academic Achievement in STEM Through Culturally Relevant Literacy Practices: A Theoretical Framework

Introduction

Motivation and support for academic achievement within STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education is essential as the related fields expand to include more and more jobs (Franks & Capraro, 2019). However, there is an issue of diversity within STEM education that results in a pronounced lack of diversity in STEM jobs (Alfred et al. 2019, Cantor et al. 2014, Kuschel et al. 2020, Malcom et al. 1976). One way to ensure more diversity within STEM education is through the incorporation of culturally relevant literacy practices (Brown et al., 2019). Together with culturally relevant literacy practices, the authors suggest linking Universal Design for Learning and enhancing student motivation in STEM. Here, the authors propose a new theoretical framework designed to ensure students are motivated and supported in their academic achievement in STEM through culturally relevant literacy practices with an aim to increase the diversity of people in STEM fields. Specifically, the goals of the authors are to:

• ●

  Describe the need for diversity in STEM fields that expands to include people of color, people with disabilities, and members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community

• ●

  Explain a new theoretical framework that will enhance STEM motivation and support academic achievement through the use of culturally responsive literacy practices

• ●

  Provide examples of how to engage students using the new theoretical framework in the classroom

Understanding the current lack of diversity in STEM education and fields will help provide a backdrop for understanding the importance of recruiting more diverse learners into STEM education. Considering the limited research on diversity in STEM, authors will discuss the expansion of diversity to include more than race, ethnicity, and binary genders. In fact, most research in this area focuses primarily on race and gender (Alfred et al., 2019). Additionally, very little work has been completed in the area of the intersectionality between race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and disability. People with disabilities have been largely overlooked in the research related to diversity in STEM (Hawley et al., 2013).

Explaining a new theoretical framework that enhances STEM motivation and supports academic achievement through the use of culturally responsive literacy practices will provide educators and researchers a clear idea of a way to move forward in the endeavor to enhance STEM learning and increase the diversity of students pursuing STEM education. The new theoretical framework proposed below consists of three elements: Culturally relevant literacy practices, UDL as support for academic achievement, and STEM motivation. Each of the elements are discussed in detail below.

Finally, providing examples of how to engage students using the new theoretical framework in the classroom will give educators clear ideas of activities or lessons they can incorporate to cover content specific to educational standards while also ensuring students are engaged in ways that enhance motivation and support academic achievement. The examples provided below are based on researched methods of including STEM activities to meet students’ needs and incorporate established standards for grade level proficiency. Many of the activities offered as examples come from the Maker Movement (Martin, 2015, p. 31). The idea is that students need to be engaged in creating, or making, in order to fully develop a working knowledge of STEM information. Conceptual knowledge can be solidified through student engagement in the real-world making allowed through the Maker Movement. In this way, students are learning concepts, vocabulary, and applying the new knowledge to develop and create.