Supporting career awareness through job shadowing and industry site visits

1 Introduction

2 Job shadowing and site visits within SciCar

Job shadowing and site visits are seen as part of informal and formal activities. Informal activities may reinforce the intellectual demands, focusing on topics in modern science, connected to the learning preferences of young people (Anderson et al., 2003; Belova et al., 2015). It is important to realise that job shadowing and site visits need to be relevant to diverse learners’ needs, influencing science education and teaching practices, and encouraging positive attitudes towards scientific careers (EU, 2004). However, job shadowing and site visit projects require adequate preparation in order to succeed and lead to efficient outcomes. For example, Industry Site Visits show that the leader of the visit (high school teacher, university instructor, etc.) needs to prepare the visit appropriately with the students, as well as with the contact person at the visited site (Lavonen & Meisalo, 2007; Mamlok, 1990).

To sum-up, when focusing on job shadowing and site visits, one may conclude that the main goals referring to students at all levels as well as to scientists seem to be:

1. Developing positive attitudes towards science among high school and university students, such as curiosity, open-mindedness, critical thinking, creativity, and appreciation for evidence through visits to scientific sites,

2. Enabling them to connect scientific phenomena and concepts with everyday contexts,

3. Motivating and encouraging them to choose scientific careers, and

4. Promoting education about a career with visits to laboratories and science sites, being a model for active involvement of students in learning.

These goals revolve around using site visits as a way to connect theory with practice, spark interest in science, develop scientific attitudes, and expose students to potential career paths in scientific fields (Braund, 2004).

3 Undertaking job shadowing or site visits

One of the goals of job shadowing and site visit programs is to familiarize participants with research and its impact on teaching and learning, as well as to raise the motivation of students to study science, and choose a scientific career (Vennix et al., 2018). These goals revolve around a way to connect theory with practice, spark interest in science, develop scientific attitudes, and expose students to potential career paths in scientific fields (Braund, 2004). Interest and motivation to engage in a scientific career may be achieved by creating a dynamic and sustainable framework for cooperation and knowledge between universities, schools and industrial organisations (Kuitunen, 1984; Lines et al., 2007). One of the goals is the need for a large spectrum of skills in the future workforce and influencing career choices of young people (OECD Global Science Forum, 2005; Unwin et al., 2004).

Although the SciCar project focused was on enhancing the scientific career of scientists as well as of graduate students and potential science teachers, this encompassed a focus on the career awareness of high school students and guidance in choosing a scientific career. Goldstein et al. (2019) described a continuum that varie between a single visit to a research laboratory and a long internship that included job shadowing, which included a range of goals that could be achieved through different activities placed on this continuum. Furthermore, when the visit was combined with participating in a laboratory activity that represent authentic nature of science, it had a positive impact on students’ emotions (Yonai & Blonder, 2022). In activities where emotions were aroused, this was seen as having a mediating effect on students’ future career plans. Furthermore, in teaching about the chemical industry, Hofstein and Kesner (2006) pointed out the importance of providing students with the opportunities to experience the industrial environment by visiting a chemical plant and Erkkila (1996) had previously claimed that organizing industrial visits was the most common method of enterprise (entrepreneurship) education. For example, during the 1990s, more than 40 % of Finnish companies acted as hosts for students and teachers (Lavonen & Meisalo, 2007; Sahlberg, 1990). Furthermore, industrial visits were reported to make it easier to discuss cross-curriculum perspectives, awaken and deepen interest in natural sciences and to show how humans applied the sciences (cf. Langsford, 2002).

Through a STEM-related job shadowing programme, a person can learn beyond the domains of knowledge and relate to, or acquire thinking skills, such as collaboration, communication, and address society related issues, such as business models, social responsibility, etc. In the case of science education, fostering improved communication, enhancing networking opportunities, and facilitating the sharing of best practices to bolster individual self-development and ongoing professional growth is seen to have major value (Mader et al., 2017). Therefore, this suggests that the shadowing needs to be planned in detail beforehand, tailored for the specific students who participate in the program. It also needs to provide hands-on experiences through direct participation allowing the students to spend time with potential role models and seek to possess professional skills. A job shadow approach is seen as enabling students to observe and acquire essential skills and enhance their comprehension of the specific roles within the site in which they are job shadowing (Makovec, 2021; Padron et al., 2017). These aspects are carefully considered in planning job shadowing programs in the framework of SciCar.

Several studies show that job shadowing programmes serve as a valuable avenue for youth to gain insight into the competencies needed in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) careers, and for raising awareness of professional requirements of various careers. Such programs also offer a close look at daily practices related to the job, networking, undertaking collaboration, gaining competencies, etc. (Bennett et al., 2003). A study conducted by Radwan and Mousa (2023) underscored the significance of such programs, particularly within media organizations, for communication and media students. The researchers highlighted the importance of continuously assessing students’ training needs through ongoing communication and coordination with colleges, a crucial element for the success of job shadowing initiatives (concrete experience). Furthermore, the study emphasized the effectiveness of delivering these programs through diverse methods to maximize their benefits. Students who participated in job shadowing workshops derived substantial value from the integrated knowledge and skills offered, with practical, hands-on experiences bolstering the positive impacts of the program (active experimentation). These workshops aimed to equip students with a wide range of skills, including media management, event and forum organization, social media-based media coverage, publication and website design, editing, and television direction.

Job shadowing, in general, is seen as a valuable job preparation method, whereby an interested employee has the opportunity to closely observes employees performing their role (Tussoleha et al., 2019). Job shadowing also serves as a learning opportunity for interns, or PhD students to familiarize themselves with role requirements and tasks. By facilitating continuous professional development, job shadowing offers a number of benefits, such as exposure to potential new methods and solutions in work practices, enhanced understanding of management principles, networking opportunities with experts, fostering collaboration and promoting mutual understanding among individuals from diverse backgrounds and perspectives (Cho & Gao, 2009).

The following section presents examples referring to exposure of science teacher educators and PhD students in science education to scientific research, in the framework of Scientific Career Awareness (SciCar) European project.

4 Examples of a job shadow and site visits

The SciCar project examples describe interactions by science teacher educators and PhD science students to:

1. Laboratories at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and the University of Helsinki in Finland, and

2. A field environment and ecological laboratory stationed in a forest in Israel.

More explicitly, the examples are:

1. Job shadowing within a laboratory at the Weizmann Institute of Science,

2. A Site Visit to the Institute of Chemistry at the University of Helsinki in collaboration with the Institute of Chemistry, University of Tartu, for introducing innovations at industry and supporting student teachers to learn transversal competences,

3. A Site Visit to Professor Dan Yakir’s lab: Yatir Forest, Ecophysiology Group.

In each case, the interactions are structured, with preparations made beforehand, questions to answer put forward, and reflections included after the event.

5 Job shadowing within a laboratory at the Weizmann Institute of Science

The first example contains a summary of students’ impressions from the job shadowing activities, based on questions which they are asked to answer. The other two examples consist of descriptions of activities on site visits. However, a methodology reflective summary, presented for the first example, is put forward as a recommendation, which can be seen as appropriate for each of the activities in order to maintain the impact of the job shadowing and the site visit (Blonder & Mamlok-Naaman, 2016).

During March 2023, science teacher educators and PhD students in science education from the university of Tartu (UT) Estonia, were invited to ‘shadow’ researchers in a laboratory at the department of physical chemistry, at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. The activity lasted 4 days, in which the educators and students interacted with research scientists in this laboratory. Besides gaining an impression of the research, they experienced the value of team work as enhancing the development of knowledge and skills of the researchers, as well as cutting-edge hands-on experiences. The experience by the UT personnel could be described as Active Experimentation (Radwan & Mousa, 2023).

The topic of the research was Single molecules protein dynamics. Table 1 summarizes the impressions gained by those undertaking job shadowing, based on four questions.

Figure 1 illustrates a few areas in the laboratory in which the visitors experienced their job shadowing e.g., a meeting table for the students and the researchers for holding discussions, a research poster and experimental tools.

Figure 1:

Within the laboratory at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

An analysis of the reports by the science teacher educators and PhD students in science education, who were involved in the job shadowing, revealed that the job shadowing influenced their image of the hosting researchers, as well as their satisfaction from choosing their career in science education. They also mentioned that they developed more insights, enabling them to encourage their students to become future scientists. In addition, they had gained more self-confidence to criticise their own work and to understand their teaching strategies.

6 A site visit to the University of Helsinki

The Institute of Chemistry at the University of Helsinki organised a site visit for science teacher educators and PhD students in science education, who teach special courses related to chemistry laboratory at the University of Tartu. At the University of Tartu, the science teacher educators and PhD students in science education learn similar chemistry compared with other students in the faculty as they are taught by chemistry research background people. However, at Helsinki during the last 25 years, a specific program for chemistry student teachers, consisting of chemistry and chemistry-related pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) studies, has been organised and chemistry education research has been included. The teachers, professor, lecturer and PhD students, who teach chemistry related PCK in the program, have a strong chemistry education research background.

Thus, a site visit to the Institute of Chemistry at the University of Helsinki April 24th – 25th was organised for teachers, a lecturer and PhD students, who taught special courses to chemistry student teachers at the University of Tartu with the aim of introducing what kind and how such chemistry education research could be organised at the Institute of Chemistry, how learning of PCK could be combined with the learning of chemistry and how chemistry student teachers were supported to gain experiences about working with school students within their studies at the Institute of Chemistry. This early possibility to teach and supervise school students’ chemistry learning is seen as important for motivational development to study in a chemistry teacher education program and to prevent drop-out from the chemistry teacher education program (Kousa, 2019).

The visit consisted of three phases:

1. It started with the introduction of staff members from each Institution. Then, three chemistry education research projects, conducted at the Helsinki Institute of Chemistry, were introduced and discussed. The first project focused on the use of digital tools in chemistry and chemistry teacher education. The second project focused on chemistry student teachers’ learning in the chemistry laboratory, Gadolin, through supervising school students engaged in laboratory activities. Gadolin, as a versatile, active learning environment offered experiences for school students to learn modern and engaging chemistry with modern equipment in the university context. A second consideration was that Gadolin offered chemistry student teachers possibilities to supervise school students learning and develop their teaching skills. Third, Gadolin was an environment for undertaking chemistry education research. Gadolin was located on the Kumpula campus of the University of Helsinki’s Department of Chemistry (Aksela et al., 2024).

   A third project aimed to shed light on teachers’ beliefs on project-based learning in secondary school chemistry. Thus, all three projects aimed to demonstrate, how teaching and learning of chemistry, PCK and, moreover, chemistry education research could be combined in chemistry teacher education at the Institute of Chemistry. Finally, the research methodology and outcomes of the research and, moreover, student teachers learning of PCK, were discussed.

   As a result, a couple of common interests were recognised.

2. The visitors observed, in practice, how two chemistry student teachers supervised school students learning in the chemistry laboratory Gadolin and how this supervision supported their learning of PCK. Moreover, it was described, how chemistry education research is conducted. The research topics were preparation of ice-cream and nature of sugars.

3. The visitors observed a chemistry student teacher class, which emphasised inquiry-based approaches in chemistry teacher education. Consequently, the class supported student teachers to learn both chemistry and chemistry related PCK. In the class, each student had his/her own chemistry education related topic. During the visit, two students were introducing their project while the other students and the teacher were giving constructive feedback to the presenting students.

After the site visit, the visiting teachers who taught special courses to chemistry student teachers at Tartu University were asked to write a plan, on how they were making progress in chemistry teacher education, chemistry education research and teacher education environments in Tartu. Subsequently, the following plan was developed by the visitors:

The Investigation Lab (https://www.uurimislabor.teaduskool.ut.ee/en) is to be designed as a versatile, active learning environment, which offers experiences of modern chemistry industry and the phenomena behind industrial scale processes for school students and student teachers in teacher education. The lab should be designed according to experiences gathered during the site visit to the Institute of Chemistry at the University of Helsinki.

The planned lab, or actually the lab-activities, such as fuel-cell activity, are to support the school students and student teachers to learn, in addition to chemistry knowledge and competences, future, or transversal, competences needed in everyday and working life situations in the future. Moreover, our goal is to support the development of teaching and learning in chemistry, to promote interest in chemistry and chemistry related careers, increase awareness of the extensive importance of chemistry competences in everyday and working life situations and finally, to provide information about studies and careers in chemistry and offering experiences of learning chemistry.

The first lab activity in the new lab is planned to be a water electrolysis and fuel cell activity. It is planned to include

1. A general introduction and discussion of renewable and non-renewable energy sources. What is the energy crisis, and what potential energy sources can we use more in the future?

2. In the lab activities, solar energy and water are used to produce renewable hydrogen. Students can study how solar energy is converted into hydrogen and the chemical process behind this.

3. Secondly, the synthesized hydrogen can be used as chemical energy and converted to electrical energy using the fuel cell. Hydrogen fuel cells do this very cleanly, with no toxic emissions, and with a high efficiency. Fuel cell technologies have many potential clean energy applications – from running vehicles to power cellular phones and laptops.

4. A debate-roleplay on energy is carried out, where each group undertakes a specific role (wind farm representative, hydrogen energy representative, oil industry representative, oil shale mine representative, etc.) and task. As part of the debate, students can apply their previous and new knowledge and discuss the different aspects of energy/energy production.

The best practices and approaches are to be discussed more with Helsinki University Chemistry Didactics Group, and lab activities are tested and piloted. When school students and student teachers engage in fuel cell activity, they learn future competences in line with the OECD descriptions of future competences (Vincent-Lancrin et al., 2019). Especially, they learn practical and physical skills, which include inquiry and problem-solving skills; cognitive and meta-cognitive skills, such as critical and creative thinking skills; and learning-to-learn and self-regulation skills; and social and emotional skills, such as, empathy, self-efficacy, responsibility, and collaboration.

Renewable energy lab activities involve experimenting with and analysing the behaviour of fuel cells and the process of hydrogen electrolysis. Fuel cell and hydrogen electrolysis labs encourage students to ask questions and seek answers through experimentation. Participants can explore various factors that affect the performance of fuel cells or the efficiency of hydrogen electrolysis. Fuel cell and hydrogen electrolysis labs involve teamwork, where students work together to design experiments, gather data, and discuss findings. Collaborative activities foster effective communication, teamwork, and sharing of ideas and perspectives.

Debate is a dynamic and engaging activity that fosters critical thinking and enhances discussion skills. It provides a platform for the students to articulate their opinions, analyse complex issues, and develop well-reasoned arguments. Engaging in debates promotes the exploration of different perspectives, encourages evidence-based reasoning, and challenges participants to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of various viewpoints.

All the above can be regarded as part of the job shadowing/site visit rationale.

The plan describes new practices for learning chemistry, chemistry related PCK and, moreover, transversal competences within chemistry teacher education at the University of Tartu. However, the plan is not yet analysing the possibilities for combining chemistry education research with new practices. It is envisaged that, in the future, best practices and approaches can be discussed further with the Helsinki University Chemistry Didactics Group, as well as the new practices after testing and piloting.

Follow-up comments related to the visit.

As an outcome of the fuel cell activity, it is expected that when school students and student teachers engage in this activity, they learn in line with the OECD descriptions of future competences (Vincent-Lancrin et al., 2019). More specifically, they are guided to learn practical and physical skills, including inquiry and problem-solving skills; cognitive and meta-cognitive skills (such as critical and creative thinking skills); learning-to-learn and self-regulation skills; and social and emotional skills (such as, empathy, self-efficacy, responsibility, and collaboration).

While the renewable energy lab activities involve experimenting with and analysing the behaviour of fuel cells and the process of hydrogen electrolysis. The example of practical activities on fuel cell and hydrogen electrolysis encourages students to ask questions and seek answers through experimentation. Thus, participants are expected to explore various factors that affect the performance of fuel cells, as well as the efficiency of hydrogen electrolysis. As the fuel cell and hydrogen electrolysis labs involve teamwork, students learn to work together to design experiments, gather data, and discuss findings as well as undertake collaborative activities fostering effective communication, teamwork, and sharing of ideas and perspectives.

Participating in a debate is a dynamic and engaging activity that seeks to foster critical thinking and enhance discussion skills. Debates provide a platform for the students to articulate their opinions, analyse complex issues, and develop well-reasoned arguments. Engaging in debates is expected to promote the exploration of different perspectives, such as encouraging evidence-based reasoning, and challenging participants to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of various viewpoints.

Besides, the plan for the laboratory and its activities in the University of Tartu, it is intended to give a starting point for active student visits, during which groups from educational institutions at different levels can conduct chemistry experiments in a real university laboratory, school students can discover possibilities through undertaking molecular modelling, meeting with researchers and visit their more specific research laboratories, as well as find out about chemistry as a field and as a topic of studies. Nevertheless, it is recognised that it is important, prior to any visit, that a school student level planning session be organised. It is important, for example, to enable school students to prepare appropriate questions to put to researchers and also to become familiar with appropriate handling of the chemicals used in the experiments.

7 A site visit to Professor Dan Yakir’s lab: Yatir Forest, ecophysiology group

https://www.weizmann.ac.il/EPS/Yakir/research-activities/field-research/yatir-forest-oject-overview

This example provided an environment research and ecological laboratory, stationed in a forest in Israel. The visit was conducted on the first day of a seminar about climate change, which lasted four days. The visitors were science teacher educators and PhD students in science education from Israel, Estonia and Finland. There was substantial preparation undertaken prior to the visit, as recommended in many papers and programs (Mamlok, 1990; Reese, 2005). For example:

1. discussions were held with the researchers that hosted the visitors,

2. a timeline was planned, suitable for the hosts as well as for the visitors,

3. undertaking the preparation of a questionnaire to be answered during the visit.

The Yatir Forest research station, has been monitoring the atmosphere above a patch of forest in southern Israel, producing data on the exchange of water, carbon and energy between the atmosphere and the semiarid ecosystem. This research station, the sole Israeli contribution to the global chain called FLUXNET, has generated scores of doctoral theses and scientific papers, as well as adding invaluable pieces to the picture of global climate change.

8 Discussion

The paper provided an example of job shadowing and 2 site visits activities that were part of the SciCar project under the Horizon 2020 Twinning program. As mentioned above, the examples refer to science teacher educators and PhD science students going to:

1. Laboratories at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and the University of Helsinki in Finland, and

2. A field environment and ecological laboratory stationed in a forest in Israel.

The job shadowing and visits were structured, with preparations made beforehand, questions to answer during the participation, questions posed by the visitors, and reflections after a site visit. These examples highlight the potential of incorporating research laboratory shadowing and hands-on activities into educational programs, fostering active learning, promoting interest in STEM fields, and facilitating the exchange of knowledge and experiences between researchers, science teacher students, and students.

The job shadowing by science teacher educators and PhD science students from the University of Tartu, Estonia to a physical chemistry lab at Weizmann in which scientists are studying single molecule protein dynamics, is seen as serving as an example of job shadowing project. As mentioned above, the job shadowing visit lasted 4 days. During the shadowing, the visitors observed and discussed with professional in their workplace, to gain insight into their daily responsibilities, work environment, and the skills required for the job (Mamlok-Naaman et al., 2010). The close interaction offered opportunities to discuss the research approach in detail.

The site visit to the chemistry teacher education, teaching and research centre in Helsinki offered the chemistry teacher education staff and students from the university of Tartu opportunities to observe and experience the general and detail operations in Helsinki, meet various professionals, gain a broad overview, related to combining learning of chemistry with learning of pedagogical content knowledge students in early stage of the chemistry teacher education. In addition to observations, participants were able to direct interaction with professionals (Radwan & Mousa, 2023).

During the shadowing, the science teacher educators and PhD students in science education had the opportunity to observe individual operations and researcher-researcher discussions as well. Also, during the site visits, there were possibilities for following presentations making observations and undertaking interactions. Although the organisers of the visits had the overall organisational responsibility, before the visits there were clearly group co-operative planning periods with the visitors and representatives from the target site. Moreover, each organiser searched advance information on the activities which added to the plan for inclusion during the visits (Mamlok, 1990).

A major purpose of all visits was seen as enabling the participants to experience modern research, and to gain some understanding regarding the nature of science or science education (Blonder et al., 2020). Furthermore, each visit included:

1. Strong team dynamics,

2. Communication/mentorship of PhD students,

3. Raising passion for the research,

4. Recognition of the interdisciplinary nature of the work – importance of teamwork, communication, motivation in achieving successful outcomes,

5. Potential educational value in sharing these experiences with their own students.

By addressing these aspects, job shadowing and site visits can became even more powerful tools in science education, bridging the gap between academic learning and real-world scientific practice. Nevertheless, the participants claimed that the visits should be longer, in order gain deeper insights into the scientific work. Although the visit to Yatir’s Forest Site was a short site visit, it allowed science education researchers, as well as the PhD students and scientists, to connect scientific phenomena and concepts within everyday contexts (Hofstein & Walberg, 1995), understand the connection between science and technology and be aware about different aspects of scientific research.

In summary, job shadowing and site visits, are shown to be ‘potentially effective’ supporting progression to further education and in developing a better awareness of particular careers (Buzzeo & Cifci, 2017). The current paper presents job shadowing and site visit activities aimed at increasing science career awareness, with specific examples highlighting the experiences, observations, the asking of inquiry questions, hypothesising, planning and conducting experiments, analysing findings and striving to reach conclusions (Blonder et al., 2008; Lunetta et al., 2007). The participants as well as the hosting scientists, were guided to reflect on the visit procedures, and to give recommendations (Rennie, 1994). We may conclude that this kind of activities foster a deeper understanding of the scientific process, promote interdisciplinary thinking, and provide educators with practical knowledge to enhance their teaching. However, careful planning and structured reflection are crucial to maximize the benefits of these activities. Figure 2 illustrates the different aspects of the project.

Figure 2:

Different aspects of the project.