2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In recent years, growing emphasis has been placed on STEM education as a foundation for nurturing students’ creativity, problem-solving abilities, and engineering thinking for educating future engineers. Extracurricular STEM learning activities have gained increasing attention for their potential to enhance students’ interest in science and engineering, develop related skills, and foster their career aspirations and therefore support the transition from secondary to tertiary education. However, how to build a strong learning ecosystem for organizing and implementing extracurricular STEM learning activities, to remains underexplored. This study adopts a qualitative research design to examine the roles and functions of multiple stakeholders in organizing and implementing extracurricular STEM learning activities to facilitate a smooth transition from secondary to tertiary engineering education. In-depth interviews were conducted with multiple stakeholders, including education administrators, secondary-school teachers, university faculty, and staff from science and technology centers. The results reveal several structural and pedagogical challenges that hinder effective collaboration across educational levels. Particular attention is given to the roles of secondary-school teachers, who serve as key intermediaries in activity design, resource integration, and teacher–student collaboration. Building on these findings, the study suggests ways to strengthen cross-stage coordination, improve resource sharing, and encourage broader stakeholder collaboration. These findings contribute to a better understanding of how collaborative support systems can foster a smoother and more sustainable transition in engineering talent development.