2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

High-quality rural STEM education is crucial for the sustainable future of rural communities. Classroom evaluation, as a fundamental aspect of educational assessment, plays a vital role in promoting students' learning and development. This study aims to investigate the impact of rural teachers' beliefs on classroom evaluation and the underlying mechanisms. The findings demonstrate a significant positive correlation between rural teachers' beliefs and their classroom evaluation practices. In the context of STEM education, teachers with strong beliefs tend to employ diverse evaluation methods and foster positive evaluation concepts to enhance students' learning and development. Additionally, rural teachers' STEM literacy mediates the relationship between their teaching beliefs and classroom evaluation. Specifically, stronger teaching beliefs regarding STEM education lead to higher levels of STEM literacy, subsequently influencing their classroom evaluation activities. Moreover, the subject type taught by rural teachers moderates the impact of their teaching beliefs on classroom evaluation, emphasizing the importance of integrating liberal arts into STEM education. This study emphasizes the practical significance of improving rural teachers' classroom evaluation practices and advancing their STEM literacy. It advocates for future research explicitly integrating liberal arts into STEM education, advancing rural teachers' STEM literacy, developing strategies for high-quality interdisciplinary STEM education, and addressing rural challenges. This approach contributes to the holistic development of rural students and propels the advancement of STEM education.