About this Research Topic

Background

Greater STEM capabilities are needed not only to foster future economic growth and prosperity, but also to ensure the sustainability of our lives and environment. While new job opportunities are emerging in newly created and rapidly growing technologies, however, student interest in STEM areas is declining. Undoubtedly, some students may be led to avoid STEM areas due to the perceived challenges and the anxiety of learning and working in STEM areas. In STEM education this is highly significant from a psychological perspective since STEM disciplines are commonly perceived as more challenging than other subjects. Therefore, understanding the psychology behind students’ motivations, attitudes, struggles, dispositions, and anxieties can have major implications for student well-being and academic outcomes.

Since psychology is directly related to people’s well-being and quality of life experiences, it has many implications for developing a healthy and positive mindset toward lifelong learning. Learning happens everywhere and at all times in our lives, but more specifically at school through formal education. As educators, academics and researchers, the quality of our teaching, research and learning dispositions should be a priority rather than more narrowly defined academic outcomes.

Our focus in this Research Topic is to explore the psychological dimensions of learning in STEM disciplines. Students’ attitudes, motivations, loves, likes, enjoyment, attention, and anxiety in relation to lessons are some of the important psychological factors that affect the quality of teaching and learning. They also help educators to distinguish dissimilar and struggling learners in STEM disciplines across all grade levels from preschool to higher education. In addition, educational psychology can be applied to the design of special education and gifted education environments, including from an interdisciplinary perspective.

As a result of the rapid growth and change of technology and the economy, it is predicted that many of the professions that await our students in the future do not exist today and that existing professions will undergo significant changes. STEM education is also critical in social psychology as it spurs innovation, sustainability, cooperation, and production. Against this backdrop, this Research Topic welcomes all studies addressing Psychology and STEM education, including, but not limited to:

• Anxiety in STEM education
• Psychological factors affecting STEM career decisions
• Positive and negative attitudes towards STEM education
• Influencing STEM students’ curiosity for change and innovation
• Communication skills in STEM education
• Motivation in STEM education

Keywords: Non-cognitive components of learning in STEM, Wellbeing in STEM, Social-emotional learning in STEM, Psychological factors in STEM

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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