Abstract
This study examined Finnish 9th-graders’ (N = 966) pathways to educational and occupational aspirations considering two academic domains: mathematics and reading. Multi-group structural equation models were conducted to investigate how domain-specific performance and motivational beliefs (self-concept and interest), and more general school burnout (exhaustion, cynicism, and inadequacy) relate to boys' and girls' aspirations. Performance in both domains was related to girls' educational aspirations, but only mathematics was linked to boys' aspirations. Positive within-domain relations from girls' motivational beliefs were also found, but their reading self-concept was negatively linked to their math-related occupational aspirations. For boys, only math-related motivational beliefs were associated with their aspirations. Lastly, school burnout was both directly and indirectly linked to students' aspirations. Overall, the study demonstrated the importance of including several factors when investigating students’ aspired educational degrees and occupational plans and, also, the added value of examining educational and occupational aspirations across academic domains.
Highlights
Students' decision-making processes about their future are important considering that aspirations have been found to be one of the main predictors of actual educational and occupational attainment (Armstrong & Crombie, 2000; Schoon & Parsons, 2002)
Parker et al (2014) found similar results; students performing well in mathematics chose careers in biological, medical, law, and business-related fields. These results suggest that students who perform well in mathematics, aspire to higher educational degrees, and that mathematics performance seems to be an important predictor of occupational aspirations, regardless of whether the aspired job involves mathematics or reading skills
Our results largely concurred with previous findings, and demonstrated that performance, motivational beliefs, and school burnout all contribute to the educational degrees and occupations students aspire to
Summary
Students' decision-making processes about their future are important considering that aspirations have been found to be one of the main predictors of actual educational and occupational attainment (Armstrong & Crombie, 2000; Schoon & Parsons, 2002). According to prominent theories of motivation (e.g., expectancy-value theory; Eccles et al, 1983), the processes leading to such aspirations are shaped by students' expectancies of success (e.g., self-concept) and by value-laden motivational beliefs (e.g., interest), and several academic factors (e.g., performance) have been identified as important predictors (e.g., Guo, Marsh, Parker, Morin, & Dicke, 2017). There seem to be gender differences in both the level and field of aspired education and occupation; girls persistently show less interest in math-related careers, and are more interested in fields related to literature and reading, whereas the opposite applies for boys (Eccles, 2009; Lazarides & Lauermann, 2019). The I/E model has been useful for predicting motivational beliefs, it has rarely been applied to career-relevant pathways, despite its potential relevance
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