Examining the relation between personality, expectancy-value and attitude towards science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem), in the project-based learning (pjbl) environment

Taiwan’s education strategy is developing within process to fit the students’ personal needs, interests and self- development. It is important to understand the Attitude and value factors that influence individual educational choices. In this article, the study conduct a literature review of the current knowledge surrounding individual attitudes in STEM, personality and using expectancy–value theory as a guiding framework. The overarching goal of this paper is to provide both a well-defined theoretical framework and complementary empirical evidence for linking specific external and internal factors to individual value differences in personality and STEM attitude. A sampling of 147 first-years of college students with health-care educational background was randomly selected from a technological university in Taiwan. Multiple research methods were adopted, including: the questionnaire consists of three constructs: STEM attitudes (thirty-eight items), students’ expectancy–value (eleven items), and students’ personality (thirty-two items). The results of the questionnaire analysis are as following that students had a positive attitude towards STEM, especially technology and engineering are the most popular subject with using expectancy-value. However, that there were significant differences of STEM attitudes depending students’ different personality traits, especially in the dimensions of Openness, Extraversion, Conscientiousness. Most of the students had weak significantly attitudes only towards the science, engineering and technology disciplines in the STEM.