Gifted Students’ Conceptions of Their High School STEM Education

Affective aspects of the learning environment

Climates of intellectual safety motivated students and created a sense of belonging. For instance, Caleb (all names used are pseudonyms) perceived the community in his academy as close-knit; he “knew everyone there.” Iris described the learning environment in her AP courses as intellectually safe; for example, in Iris’s AP Calculus class, she and her classmates “always felt comfortable asking questions.” Iris’s AP Biology teacher “definitely made it easier for us to not think of it as something big and scary, but as ‘it’s just science.’” Learning environments also could be threatening, though, and cause feelings of insecurity or frustration. For instance, Olivia had a chemistry teacher who “hated kids,” and when talking to students, he “wouldn’t be supportive.” She described her chemistry class as “naturally cold,” a place hard to weather without the support of good friends—her teacher was “not one of those teachers that says there are no dumb questions,” but rather, seemed to see every question as dumb. Olivia remembered, “If you ask him a question, he was like, ‘you should know this. My 11-year-old daughter can do this.’” Olivia’s chemistry experience had a strong impact on her academic trajectory; she explained, “That’s why I didn’t go into AP Chemistry.”

Social underpinnings of the STEM learning environment also affected students’ experiences. Asynchrony was an issue for Quinn, who “just wasn’t comfortable being a ninth grader in classes with 11th and 12th graders. Academic-wise, it gave us opportunities but didn’t allow us to really be in a comfortable environment.” Students also felt frustrated in environments where classroom management was weak. For example, Olivia’s anatomy teacher “didn’t have such a firm hold. There was so much talking in that class and there was so much of people not really caring that you didn’t really get anything done,” whereas Benjamin’s biology teacher often arrived 15 minutes late, leaving empty time spent socializing when learning could have taken place. The stigma of giftedness was a factor for gifted students in mixed-ability groups. For instance, Quinn refrained from speaking out in class; she “felt like if I said something, I would make people feel like I was a know-it-all.”

Intellectual challenge

Intellectual challenge was the most frequently described aspect of the learning environment (41 instances; see Figure 1). These students expressed a strong desire for intellectual challenge, and perceived the value of their education in terms of the challenge it offered. Challenge sometimes took the form of fast pacing; Benjamin enjoyed AP Calculus because it was challenging, yet also felt rushed by the pace. In a similar manner, Olivia felt rushed in statistics: “We went pretty quickly on stats.” Challenge also took the form of heavy workloads: Willow had the unpleasant experience of gifted classes where students were expected to “be challenged by having to manage time and not kill ourselves.” In other instances, gifted students hit intellectual ceilings; in one such instance, Quinn noted the absence of social learning: “Nobody can check on anybody because we’re all at the same level learning from the same person. Our knowledge only goes up to as much as she taught us.” However, intellectual challenge was often lacking; for instance, in Ariana’s physics class: “the concepts came really easy to me.” Benjamin’s experience in AP Chemistry “seemed sort of slow”: he recalled “a lot of days just roasting marshmallows on the Bunsen burners.” He reflected, “They would try to, I want to say, dumb it down, but not exactly; just try to make it more accessible to more students.” Willow, who had a very strong Algebra 1 background, got to Algebra 2 and found, “a lot of it was extending the techniques we had already learned. I saw almost all of that course as review and elaboration.” Course offerings represented another ceiling for accelerated students; for instance, AP Calculus and AP Statistics were the highest offerings available for students who wanted to expand their knowledge of mathematics.

Students’ perceptions of the value of their STEM education varied. Many students felt that their STEM education prepared them well for college; for instance, Ariana was “able to go straight into microbiology, organic chemistry, and physics” in college, and Benjamin’s advanced STEM courses “helped develop study skills” that he needed in college. Some students, however, felt less prepared; for example, Olivia’s experiences in statistics left her feeling shaky in college psychology courses: “I didn’t realize there was so much math and science in [Psychology]. I wish I was more introduced to that.” Iris, likewise, felt she “definitely could have learned more,” but felt that overall, her STEM experience in high school prepared her well for college.

Willow described her school’s AP program as “so incredible”; she took 12 AP exams and began college with 73 hours of credit. She described coming to college and “being told that I could take a graduate biochemistry class when I was a 20-year-old junior.” Institutional support in the form of grants and incentives contributed to Willow’s positive experiences in AP STEM courses—Willow’s district had “fantastic district-wide voluntary review days” where students were encouraged to attend with “extra credit and pizza—almost everybody went.” In addition, Willow’s school “won a grant from a tech company. They offered $100 cash prize per exam to students who passed math and science AP exams. They offered the same prize to teachers.” Cash was a compelling incentive: “We had teachers earning sometimes $5,000 for teaching AP classes” and students felt “encouraged to actually study for our AP exams.” The coordinated efforts at Willow’s district gave students “a date that we could count down to” and galvanized students to develop the time and material management skills they needed to prepare for comprehensive exams. The quality and format of AP preparation at Benjamin’s school was less effective; he “had study sessions pretty much for every AP class,” but unlike Willow’s coordinated district effort, Benjamin’s sessions were sponsored by individual teachers and held outside school at locations or times incompatible with his schedule. Benjamin also felt that the pacing of his combined AP Calculus AB/BC class was excessive: “The one I took combined the AB and BC curricula. Some schools split it up, which I think is good because it gives you time to learn. It felt pretty rushed.” However, Ariana felt comfortable with the pace of her accelerated dual-enrollment program, where she “found which science I wanted to go into more.”

Epistemological orientation

Students’ conceptions of their STEM education were marked by an essentialist orientation. For instance, students perceived memorization as an obstacle to higher learning and resented having to memorize material; Olivia recalled, “It was more memorization with chemistry. Disappointingly, we didn’t do any chemical stuff. It was really annoying.” Olivia explained, “You know everything separately. You don’t know how to connect the dots together and use it in critical thinking.” Along with the objections to memorization and academic compartmentalization, students also felt that the essentialist orientation inhibited creativity; Iris thought,

Because science is about life, you’d think it’d be more fun, but people tend to shy away from science and math. In English classes it was all discussion-based. Math and science were very “this is how you do things.” That doesn’t really foster creativity.

Benjamin felt uncomfortable with the fast pacing because he felt that it placed achievement of AP credits over and above personal growth and reflection; for instance, in AP Biology where the pace was more relaxed, he “felt like I grew in that stage of my life, in that class particularly.” Students felt frustrated by essentialism and recognized the advantages of constructivist approaches, such as situated learning. For example, Olivia worried that without real-life learning situations, she “wouldn’t be able to go into a situation where you’re using chemistry to actually do something, because you’re not sure about how things would work in real life.”

Academic freedom

Gifted students were sensitive to academic autonomy in STEM. Iris described her AP Biology class as an “open and free” place where she and her classmates “had a bit more freedom to take our own education into our hands.” Benjamin enjoyed autonomy in his AP Biology class: “I liked my biology teacher because she left the students a lot of freedom, like it was basically up to us to do things. That’s fine for me because I learn best, you know, on my own.” Willow experienced a high degree of autonomy in a chemistry course, where she self-selected a topic and designed a project with minimal direction:

We had to find something that we liked and actually troubleshoot the way to do it effectively in the lab . . . she offered a few ideas, but I think a lot of us were more excited to find other ones.

Organizational obstacles

Material resources confined students’ experiences in high-level STEM courses. Olivia’s school “put a massive amount of money to football and all of the math and science courses and art classes were like, ‘Ah, whatever.’” Olivia recalled that in her STEM classes, she had “rip-off textbooks” and “all these models around the classroom of the Oxygen element and Glucose but he doesn’t bring them down and say like, ‘Hey, this is it.’” Students were also limited by time constraints imposed by school activities and heavy academic workloads. Willow “was supposed to independent study math, but I actually just focused on succeeding in my other classes.” Similarly, Benjamin “was so busy with other things. Music was taking up most of my time, and just AP, you know, trying to get those credits takes a lot of time.” He also felt limited by a lack of STEM research opportunities: “It would be cool if there were some more research opportunity type deals. You know, they’re constantly pushing research here in college.” Teachers who taught “to the middle” posed an obstacle for Quinn:

It was just really counterproductive because we just kind of go along. Somebody would find something and then, they’d maybe think of the right answer. It might be wrong or it might be right . . . Nobody can check on anybody because we’re all at the same [level].

Other students described unreasonably high expectations. For instance, although Caleb attended a selective science academy, one of his teachers restricted participation in academic competitions to only the highest achievers. Caleb explained, “If you’re not good, you can’t be in computer science. Yeah. You can’t go to competitions.” At times, teachers’ personal or health issues inhibited students’ experiences; for instance, Caleb’s physics teacher “didn’t know what he was teaching most of the time. He had a lot of medical problems. He was out of it so much.” Caleb also described an administrative vacuum left after the death of an influential teacher: “There wasn’t really anyone taking charge over the internships and stuff as much anymore.”

Diversity

Students’ experiences with diversity were sometimes uncomfortable. For instance, Ariana described a STEM teacher’s racism: “She was an advisor for one of the clubs I was doing. Myself [sic] and my friends realized she was racist. It was pretty hard because we were a very diverse school.” Ariana, the only White student on the club’s executive board, explained, “She would only talk to me and not everyone collectively.” After the experience, Ariana’s relationship with the teacher changed: “It was a negative association. I didn’t enjoy being around her as much.” Quinn described an intersection of racism and elitism that she found difficult to tease apart. Quinn’s math teacher struggled to maintain her authority in a mixed-ability class, where the majority of students were Black. Quinn (also a Black student) believed that students’ conduct, rather than their race, drove the teacher’s behavior. Quinn explained, “I was a shy kind of person. A lot of the Black people, they were more out there. They were ready to be against that authority if they didn’t agree.” Quinn’s teacher attempted to maintain control by targeting less resistant students such as Quinn:

She would treat them differently than she would me and some of the White people in our class. If I’d come to school wearing jeans, she’d write me up, but if one of the other Black people in my class came wearing the same thing, she would just kind of sit there.

Quinn’s enthusiasm for math changed after this experience: “She’s kind of the one who made me stop liking math.” However, students described positive experiences related to sex or gender. For example, Willow “had some great experiences as a woman in a male-dominated field. Many of the classes, especially biology, girls outnumbered boys.” Furthermore, Willow and her peers “had a lot of really great female role models in our teachers.”

Academic and career counseling experiences

Educators provided minimal academic and career counseling. For instance, Iris visited the counselor “only to do my schedule or something like that, where we were required to go.” Students compensated for the lack of career counseling. Benjamin, for instance, found his career path without the help of a counselor:

I just sort of realized that I wanted to do something with the environment, by reading on my own. I sort of liked math. I don’t know, I just thought, like environmental engineering. I just sort of figured that out.

Willow, who started college pursuing medicine and then switched to education, recalled, “There was a career counselor. I don’t remember seeing him. Most of our career guidance took place through the classroom teachers. The counselors were most helpful with more academic registrar duties.” Overall, the students described counseling experiences that failed to meet their needs, and left them on their own to find other means by which to crystallize a career path.

Ability grouping

Grouping gifted students with intellectual peers motivated them academically and created a sense of support and belonging. Olivia found that a supportive environment helped her learn:

It was really nice because if you had a problem, someone would be up there to help you. I don’t know if that’s a way we can install an education system, “Hey, make sure everyone gets along,” but it really helps you learn.

In parallel with Olivia’s experiences, Ariana’s dual-enrollment program

helped me, along with the other honors people from my high school. By having that support system there, it helped everyone to push each other . . . I would not have enjoyed the courses as much if I were surrounded by people who weren’t as motivated with STEM.

Ability grouping created a climate of friendly competition that elevated goals and performance standards. For Ariana, being grouped with intellectual peers “helped me because it pushed me to compete with others—not aggressively, but it’s good motivation to keep each other up.” Intellectual peers provided scaffolding for one another; for instance, Ariana found it “helpful when you knew other people who were maybe a little bit more ahead or behind you, that way either they could help you or you them.” However, ability grouping had detrimental consequences for accelerated students making the transition from middle to high school. For instance, Willow described the transition as “very stressful. I still caught some teasing for being 13 years old in the high school building. I got nicknamed, including by the teacher.” Willow’s situation improved later that year after she “learned to become more comfortable [being with older students] and had quite a bit of fun.”

Teacher support

Caring teachers made a deep impression on gifted students; these teachers’ everyday interactions with their students made students feel esteemed. Caleb spoke of a teacher who “talked to students more like friends.” Olivia had a similar positive experience, with her favorite teacher being

one of those teachers you know he cares. He always cared for the stupidest reasons. Someone would be, “Oh yeah, I went to Forever 21.” He’s like, “Oh my God, really?!” Until this day I’ll go back, and he’ll know my name.

Students were aware when teachers were honestly invested; for instance, Olivia noted that her teacher “liked being there with you.” Although these caring teachers had a deeply positive impact on their gifted students, teachers who were less committed had the opposite effect. For instance, Ariana had a physics teacher who failed to understand gifted students’ needs:

I was finishing my work ahead of time, and then I was talking with my friend because she had also finished. By the end of the semester our teacher had decided to separate us and I felt like that was a problem. We were a good paired group.

Benjamin described a teacher who held a philosophical position on environmental protection that contradicted his own views: “I didn’t really like his environmental science views; I don’t support building dams, and he thought that was a good idea.” Nonetheless, Benjamin described the teacher as “a receptive guy” who projected a sense of mutual respect and support for differing viewpoints: “He encouraged debate.”

Friendship and peer support

These gifted students described close friendships with other students from their advanced STEM programs. Caleb developed lasting friendships at his academy, which he described as “a close-knit kind of foundation.” Quinn described close friendships with AP classmates: “We always hung out most of the time. I always saw them outside of class.” Sharing common goals and taking classes together helped students form close friendships; for example, Ariana recalled,

the ones I had become good friends with were also at the top of the class . . . we were pursuing STEM majors and so we were all taking similar classes, having classes together, and working on the same homework.

Interactional style

Students preferred teachers with a relaxed interactional style; for instance, one of Olivia’s teachers “was always joking around. It really helped,” and one of Benjamin’s teachers “was very geeky, always making jokes,” yet still kept up the pace. Authoritative teachers also contributed to positive experiences; Olivia remembered,

No matter how off subject we’d get, he’d always turn it back around to math. He was really down on the rules. He was literally like, “Guys, you have to listen. Get off your phones.” That was really good. Everyone concentrated.

The students described their best teachers as inclusive; for example, although Willow’s teacher “did call on specific people a fair amount,” she also “offered different types of opportunities for people to get involved. She might call on somebody to read their answer and make it less intimidating for quieter students.”

Students spoke of negative experiences with socially awkward, passive, or pernicious STEM teachers. For instance, although Iris’s teacher “was very intelligent,” he “didn’t recognize when people weren’t understanding. He wouldn’t leave room for people to ask questions. He would make them feel like they were stupid.” Iris emphasized her teacher’s failed attempts at humor: “Sometimes he thought he was joking or being funny. I think it was just him misunderstanding.” Quinn highlighted her teacher’s passivity: “She didn’t really work hard because she would just sit at the desk. Teachers are supposed to check up on the group, see if you’re doing it right.”

Teacher competence

Students described feeling inspired by expert teachers who were passionate about their subjects. Ariana explained, “If the teachers didn’t absolutely love what they were teaching, then it kind of bored me because it bored them.” Iris described her biology and chemistry teachers as “very knowledgeable over what they were teaching. They loved what they were teaching, and it inspired me to love it, too.” Iris particularly respected her biology teacher, who had worked in the field as a marine biologist for many years. Iris believed that her teacher’s knowledge of her subject reflected that real-world experience: “She definitely had a very good understanding.” Willow sensed that her chemistry teacher’s enthusiasm helped students “keep up with all of the material.” The students’ experiences with expert teachers, however, were not always positive. For example, Ariana’s physics teacher knew her subject at such a high level that “she wasn’t able to then relate it back to us, for us to understand.”

Some students described experiences with teachers who lacked skill or knowledge, especially in physical sciences and math. For instance, Quinn recounted visiting her math teacher before school for extra tutoring on a difficult assignment: “She couldn’t figure it out. I’m like, ‘You’re the teacher.’ She invited another teacher to help us figure it out. She had the key, but she didn’t know how to work it out.” Quinn described a sense of futility: “I felt like there was no reason for me to go to tutoring. She wasn’t going to help me.” Caleb, who struggled in computer science, felt shortchanged by his teacher, who also lacked competence. Caleb believed the teacher failed to provide the strong foundation in computer science that he needed to pass the AP exam: “I didn’t do well on that AP test, though, because I didn’t have that good foundation. He definitely, I think, should have taken more time with the students in computer science.” Willow recalled, “For AP Physics students, year after year, there were just never good teachers. Actually, we had one great physics teacher, but they assigned him to the remedial students.” Willow described her physics teacher’s inexperience: The teacher “seemed to be relearning the material with us.”

Teachers’ awareness of students’ needs

The students recounted positive experiences with STEM teachers who were attentive to their needs. For instance, Iris found it easier to grasp concepts more easily with teachers who “tended to be more involved and invested in their students’ lives.” Iris described her AP calculus teacher as an example: “She was really good at building relationships with students. She would always take time at the beginning of class to talk to everyone.” Beyond personal attention, Iris’s teacher anticipated students’ intellectual needs: “She already knew what would confuse us, and so we didn’t really have to ask for the extra examples.” Likewise, Caleb’s statistics teacher went the extra mile to help struggling students: “He helps you get better grades. He’ll go through everything and stay after school with you.” Students also perceived the positive influence of teachers’ organizational supports; for instance, Caleb’s biology teacher’s organizational support enabled his participation in extracurricular academics. Caleb explained that his teacher’s support ensure that “you got your stuff done on time and your forms turned in.”

Teacher expectations

Gifted students described negative experiences related to teachers’ low expectations. Quinn remarked,

I didn’t like a lot of my teachers because I felt like they expected little from me. I was used to being treated like an Honors child and I wasn’t at that school. That’s what I really didn’t like from my teachers.

Quinn elaborated on one particular teacher: “She’d be like, ‘Oh, Quinn, I didn’t know you could do this.’ That got to me sometimes.” However, students describe feeling empowered by high expectations. For instance, Olivia “had one teacher that was really adamant” about students mastering material; that teacher “would actually try harder than most teachers instead of just assuming, okay, you’re going to get this no matter what.” Willow appreciated her chemistry teacher, who “was keeping us from treating the subject like a spectator sport. We weren’t allowed to just sit and watch her work out problems.” Olivia described a comparable experience with her statistics teacher: “She really tried to make us work through” difficult concepts. Similarly, Iris’s calculus teacher “would explain everything clearly and step-by-step, with a lot of examples.”

Authentic learning

Willow described strong, positive feelings about her authentic STEM learning experiences. One of Willow’s authentic experiences was in chemistry, where students were required to “find and execute some fun chemistry demonstration for a class of fifth graders.” Willow and her classmates were free to design and present the demonstration as they wished, but had to accurately explain the theory behind it. Willow also gained practical experience in her health science course. She recalled, “There was a sports medicine module where students actually went on field trips to athletic trainers to learn how to wrap injured or weakened joints,” and she also made weekly observations at a hospital and “loved it.” Ariana’s independent study class required students to find a mentor in their field of interest. Ariana explained,

I found an internship with a local police department. I was able to study the forensics behind one of the cases this lady had recently closed. I wrote a paper over what was done, what tests were done, the science behind the tests, which was really interesting.

Furthermore, Ariana’s dual enrollment gave her access to college lab facilities: “We got to do labs on Fridays in the college labs. Having those real lab experiences really helped.” Willow’s and Ariana’s authentic experiences were exceptional—other students’ authentic learning experiences came in the form of simulations and presentations. For example, Benjamin “had to, like, build the whole DNA reproduction process with clay and animate it,” and Iris “did this presentation over I think it was DNA replication.”

Students perceived a void of interdisciplinary learning experiences, and believed the lack of such experiences subtracted from their STEM education. Willow explained, “We had biology teachers who didn’t know very much chemistry. We would either bring in the chemistry teacher or sometimes AP Chemistry veteran students to serve as consultants.” Olivia recognized gaps in the STEM curriculum that obscured concepts common to both math and science. She explained using an exponential decay function as an analogy:

You know that curve, and how we’ll never reach zero? I’m always there like, “Why would it never reach zero?” At least put more depth to it so I can see, you know? I think it’s more of the sciences.

Willow believed that biology and chemistry should have been combined in a single block class and pointed out, “there are so many things, both topics, and math and cognitive skills that carry back and forth.”

Collaborative learning

Many of the students described negative experiences with collaborative learning. For instance, Iris believed it was “definitely a challenge time-wise and logistically.” Quinn explained, “It’s like nobody in the group knew what to do. We didn’t have roles like ‘This is a leader.’ Oh, no. We didn’t do that at all.” Benjamin believed that group work imposed an unnecessary additional cognitive load:

It would take us a long time to get started and try to figure out what we were supposed to be doing, like a combination of focusing and figuring out what we were supposed to be doing at the same time.

Only one student, Iris, described positive collaborative learning experiences; Iris explained that group work

definitely challenges me more, because I’m really good at working on my own. In group projects it helps because if there’s a conflict about whether something is correct or not, you have to explain it more and research it more, and working together you get a lot of different points of view.

Iris believed she would have benefitted from more collaborative learning experiences: “It would have been cool to do group projects and stuff in math, because you would really have to think about the concepts and understand them more fully.”

Active learning

Students described many positive experiences involving active learning. For instance, Ariana’s algebra teacher presented realistic problems with consequences attached. Ariana explained, “If you have wrong answers, then some someone would be building a bridge, it’d be 2 inches off, and then the whole bridge crumbles.” Olivia’s anatomy class, which she described as the best class she had, was extremely active: “We dissected a cat; we did all the hands-on stuff, connected fake neurons.” Students recognized when they would have benefitted from more active learning experiences. Ariana felt that more hands-on lab work in her science classes would have helped her learn more effectively. Olivia also believed that her science learning experience should have been more active. For example, she found balancing chemical equations on paper difficult to conceptualize, and needed a more hands-on, concrete learning experience: “If we would have seen it, not just memorized the numbers, more like seeing it and bringing in more models.” Similarly, Caleb thought his chemistry teacher “didn’t do projects and experiments as much as we should.” However, despite the majority of students’ strong positive perceptions of active learning, one student believed that she benefitted from traditional drill and practice in math; Quinn believed that a reason for her positive experiences in precalculus was that her teacher “gave us a lot of worksheets.” Quinn explained that worksheets required many repetitions of complex problem-solving strategies; working through those strategies repeatedly helped her retain and apply the strategies.

Conceptual learning supports were a part of students’ positive experiences. For example, Willow recalled,

one of the first times in my education when I felt that my gifted classes were giving me a cognitive challenge. The teacher showed us a unit circle and taunted us saying, “This is what you have to memorize when you take pre-cal. You have to understand it.”

What worked for Willow were important formulas and concepts briefly described, printed large, and with “sometimes funny names for them like ‘the big mamma equation.’” Organizational strategies were also helpful; for example, Quinn’s chemistry teacher had students “do index cards. She would be like, ‘Go check your index cards this day.’ She made sure that we were accountable at home—she checked up on us.”