Interventions in education to prevent STEM pipeline leakage

The so-called leaking STEM pipeline (dropout in STEM education)has been the subject of many studies. The large interest ofscholars in plausible causes of this leakage has resulted in anumber of meta-reviews describing factors at system, school andstudent level related to interest and persistence in STEMeducation. The STEM pipeline discussion has also resulted in alarge number of programmes aimed at enhancing STEM interestand persistence in STEM education. Although these programmeshave been widely evaluated, there seems to be no consensusabout which interventions are successful in raising interest inSTEM or persistence in STEM education. This study reports theresults of a systematic review of empirical studies in which theeffectiveness of STEM-related interventions are assessed. Initially,538 studies were found. The quality analyses showed that only afew of these evaluation studies are designed in such a way that itis likely that the found effects are caused by the intervention.Although some potentially effective interventions were found, thisreview shows that there is still a need for research into theeffectiveness of those programmes, especially with regard toprogrammes preventing talented and initially motivated STEMstudents to drop out of STEM education.