Role of inductive reasoning, gender, learning satisfaction, and educational and career preference in predicting scientific competency in high school

Abstract

Scientific competency has been known for its role as a core component of science education. Numerous studies in education have suppoerted the development of scientific competency and demonstrated that analysing certain predictors and associated variables can provide better information for developing it. The current study explores the effect of certain predictors of scientific competency: inductive reasoning, gender, learning satisfaction, and educational and career preference. We recruited high school students (n = 613) in Indonesia, who completed online scientific competency and inductive reasoning tests, and questionnaires on learning satisfaction and educational and career preference. The scientific competency and inductive reasoning tests demonstrated acceptable construct validity and an acceptable Rasch fit index (with an infit mean square value ranging from 0.86 to 1.29). The results indicate that scientific competency is associated with inductive reasoning (β = 0.63, p < 0.01) and is slightly affected by gender. In addition, we found small effects of education preference and learning satisfaction on inductive reasoning, whereas career preference is strongly related to educational preference. These findings supported the claim that the development of scientific competency in high school should involve inductive reasoning and other predictors. Future research perspectives include exploring how other educational variables and strategies influence the development of scientific competencies.