Hybrid stem intervention as new post-pandemic approach to motivate students to stem

There has long been a struggle over how to increase student interest in careers in STEM and meet the labour market's need for specialised knowledge and skills. The long-standing debate at the EU level about the role of formal, informal, and non-formal education in meeting these challenges has not yet reached a clear conclusion. In the last decade, there has been a significant increase in the number of STEM programmes offered by various non-governmental organisations in Croatia. These interventions are often localised and have limited social impact, but there is a strong willingness to create an environment for their greater inclusion in the formal education system, triggered by comprehensive curriculum reform in Croatia. Motivation, especially intrinsic motivation, is a crucial driving force in our lives. In our pilot study, conducted with 6th grade elementary students, we aimed to explore the extent to which STEM interventions encourage students to learn more about the topic and whether it is possible to incorporate lessons learned from the pandemic into the design of future interventions. Our results show that there is no significant difference in student motivation after a 45-minute whole-class interactive intervention between face-to-face and virtual delivery. Although the intervention was entertaining, students perceived the science as interesting and useful rather than entertaining. Considering that students have positive attitudes toward Nature as a school subject, an early intervention with students at this age could be useful in maintaining their interest and preventing a decline in interest later in life. This finding is particularly important in the context of the transformation of the Croatian elementary school system into a "whole -day school", which provides room for incorporating this type of intervention into a regular school system.