A Longitudinal Study of the Effects of Context and Experience on the Scientific Career Choices of Canadian Adolescents
Keywords:
longitudinal, context, experience, scientific career choice, canadian, adolescentsAbstract
A longitudinal study was conducted on a sample of Canadian adolescents to track changes in science/math career choice development over a five-year span and to examine the impact of contextual and experiential factors on later choices. For the current study, five years after the initial data collection, 116 of the original participants were contacted to determine their field of study or nature of work (science or non-science). Results from a crosstabulation of gender and career choice showed a significant difference between males and females in stability of career choice. Approximately 64% of males, but only 41 % of females, remained with their original science career choice. The main reasons cited by both males and females for moving away from a science career were a change in interests, difficulty with science and math courses, and the influence of work placement. Sequential logistic regression results indicated that measures of learning experiences, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and interests contributed significant unique variance to the prediction of scientific career choice five years later.
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