The present paper presents an evaluation study accompanying an innovative means to pique primary school pupils’ interest and familiarity with future technologies. Before describing the project itself, a short digression into the scientific foundation of the project shall be undertaken.

Different explanations have been discussed what the background to differences in STEM interests in boys and girls are. Cheryan and colleagues (2017) have among other factors argued that fewer exposure of girls in younger years towards computers and technology partially explains the frequently observed gender differences in STEM interests. Also van Meter-Adams and colleagues (2014) could show how important contacts with STEM fields are in order to develop interests, and here especially extracurricular activities play a pivotal role (see Behrendt and Franklin, 2014, for a review on the importance of field trips and Stringer et al., 2020, for the effect on STEM identity and motivation). Similarly, Poor and Vasconcelos (2023) recently showed how important field trips can be to pique elementary school pupils’ interest in STEM fields, which in turn is quintessential for the likelihood that they will pursue a STEM career later on (Unfried et al., 2015).

In order to address the problem that elementary school pupils in rural areas are often excluded from STEM related field trips to museums or universities due to the location of their school the missimo project (https://missimo.at/) was conceptualised and brought to life by the Kaiserschild Foundation (https://www.kaiserschild-stiftung.at/) in Austria. The foundation’s mission is the promotion of STEM competences and interests especially in children and young adults with a special focus of increasing girls interest and self-confidence STEAM.  The centrepiece of the missimo project is a mobile 2 storey tall truck which encompasses workspaces where primary school pupils can work on six different future technologies (artificial intelligence, bionics, robotics, sensor technology, coding and augmented reality). The missimo truck itself can be booked without additional costs for the school by primary school teachers in rural areas (an elaborate system was created to determine how far schools are distanced from bigger cities where universities, museums or other institutions provide potential access to extracurricular STEM activities). However, as de Witt and Storksdieck (2018) point out, the ‘field trip’ (i.e. visiting the missimo truck) alone is not sufficient for long-term impact. Therefore, the visit is embedded in three online sessions for teachers (one before visiting the truck, two afterwards) where teachers are made acquainted with the technologies and learn how to conduct so-called missions in class with their students and the materials which they receive in the truck and can be taken home by the pupils.

The accompanying evaluation of the missimo project started in February 2024 and will provide a first intermediate evaluation report in summer 2024, during pupils’ and teachers’ summer break. As the truck can be visited by two school classes each day, several hundred pupils and their teachers should have provided data by summer 2024. A central aspect of the evaluation is the question in how far the activities in the truck as well as the materials provided for teachers also enable students and teachers with lower previous STEM interest and self-perceived competences (i.e. often female pupils and teachers) to have a positive STEM experience and, therefore, pique their interest in technology, which will continue to gain importance in the future, not only in Austria but worldwide.

The evaluation encompasses multiple aspects and perspectives as well as times of assessment. Apart from teachers’ feedback regarding satisfaction and comprehensibility immediately after the online teachers’ workshop also the digital coaches in the truck provide feedback through an online questionnaire) on factors which might have influenced pupils’ learning experience within the truck itself (size of group, noise, motivation of pupils etc.). All students are encouraged to provide feedback on how much they liked the individual workspaces in the truck (using a 5-point Likert-scale with emoticons and colours on a paper pencil questionnaire). This feedback is analysed separately for girls and boys in order to determine whether any of the workspaces are differently attractive to either sex and – more importantly – whether one of the future skills workspaces does not appeal to either boys or girls and therefore needs to be redone in order to eliminate gender bias. While visiting the truck the workspaces are also evaluated by the teachers who accompany the pupils (using a 9-item online questionnaire) regarding their preferences in workspaces and observed difficulty of the individual workspaces. These data are again assessed using statistical analyses with regard to gender differences between male and female primary school teachers. The major element of this evaluation is, however, a repeated measures design (before and after visiting the truck) assessing various STEM-related variables in pupils as well as their teachers. Due to the data being clustered (a group of students belongs to one teacher, who in turn belongs to a group of teachers from one school) an elaborate code is used to ensure anonymity and at the same time allow the recognition of these data clusters. An online questionnaire asks for self-assessed competence in technology use, interest in technology, acquaintance with technology in both pupils and teachers as well as preferred jobs, parents’ jobs and preferred toys of pupils in order to estimate their level of STEM-affinity. Again, differences between boys and girls as well as male and female teachers will be analysed and discussed.

The present paper will provide an insight into an innovative way of bringing future technologies to remote areas, allowing pupils, teachers as well as the community of the school to get in contact with these technologies. By providing educational and at the same time child-centred ways of examining these technologies, pupils’ (as well as teachers’) interest in technologies should be piqued, leading to more future contact and as a consequence higher self-esteem in technology-related fields. As developments in this field are enormously fast, it seems quintessential to allow all children (here, especially also girls and children in rural areas) the development of technology-related abilities and provide them with positive mindsets towards their own abilities in dealing with the unknown technological challenges the future will pose. Here, it is especially important to enable girls and female teachers to develop a growth mindset towards using technology by providing them with teaching materials tailored to laypersons in this field rather than “tech-pros”. Data from four months of evaluating the missimo project will show in how far the set goals seem to be reachable within the next few years. As the truck itself is largely non-verbal and mobile, a successful implementation in Austria could provide a useful basis to tackle gender differences in STEM self-concepts and interest in other European countries too.

Behrendt, M. & Franklin, T. (2014). A Review of Research on School Field Trips and Their Value in Education. International Journal of Environmental & Science Education, 9, 235-245. Doi: 10.12973/ijese.2014.213a Cheryan, S., Ziegler, S. A., Montoya, A. K., & Jiang, L. (2017). Why are some STEM fields more gender balanced than others? Psychological Bulletin, 143(1), 1–35. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000052 DeWitt, J. & Storksdieck, M. (2008). A Short Review of School Field Trips: Key Findings from the Past and Implications for the Future. Visitor Studies, 11(2), 181-197, DOI: 10.1080/10645570802355562 Poor, J. & Vasconcelos, L. (2023). Impact of Virtual Field Trips on Elementary Students' Interest in Science and STEM. In C. Martin, B. Miller, & D. Polly (Eds.), Technology Integration and Transformation in STEM Classrooms (pp. 198-222). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-5920-1.ch011 Stringer, K., Mace, K., Clark, T. & Donahue, T. (2020). STEM focused extracurricular programs: who’s in them and do they change STEM identity and motivation? Research in Science & Technological Education, 38:4, 507-522, DOI: 10.1080/02635143.2019.1662388 Unfried, A., Faber, M., Stanhope, D. & Wiebe, E. (2015). The development and validation of a measure of student attitudes toward science, technology, mathematics, and engineering. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment 33(7), 622-639. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734282915571160 Van Meter-Adams, A., Frankenfeld, C., Bases, J., Espina V., & Liotta, L. (2014). Students who demonstrate strong talent and interest in STEM are initially attracted to STEM through extracurricular experiences. CBE Life Sciences Education, 13(4), 687-97. doi: 10.1187/cbe.13-11-0213.