Abstract
According to previous theories and studies, interest and self-concept at an early age have played a pivotal role in occupational choices, especially in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. However, a causal relationship between interest, self-concept, and aspirations in science is still under debate. In addition, few studies have focused on gender differences in these relationships. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the relationships between interest and self-concept in predicting science aspirations between ages 13 and 16 at lower-secondary school, considering gender differences. For the analyses, we conducted cross-lagged modeling and multi-group structural equation modeling in order to examine interrelationships between interest, self-concept, and science aspirations. According to the results, students’ self-concept was high and stable, while interest was low but increased significantly during the lower-secondary school phases. However, there were no reciprocal relationships between interest and self-concept in predicting students’ science aspirations. Interestingly, while girls’ interest was indicated as a sound predictor of aspirations in science, girls’ self-concept had no predictive influence on aspirations. Possible interpretations and implications of the study for lower-secondary science education are discussed.
Highlights
Students’ declining interest in pursuing science-related careers has been highlighted in the science education community, since this may weaken the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)–related workforce (e.g., Subotnik et al 2009)
There is no agreement about an acceptable level of partial invariance, in general, a factor can be considered invariant if the majority, or more than half of items, in the factor are invariant from the full scalar invariance model (Steenkamp and Baumgartner 1998; Vandenberg and Lance 2000)
It is important to measure the trends in interest and self-concept and to explore the relationships of interest and selfconcept with science aspirations at these moments
Summary
Students’ declining interest in pursuing science-related careers has been highlighted in the science education community, since this may weaken the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)–related workforce (e.g., Subotnik et al 2009). The social cognitive career theory (SCCT) (Lent et al 1994) suggests that one’s competency belief in certain tasks influences taskrelated interest, and eventually one chooses a profession in which one has relatively high competence and interest in a specific field. These two constructs have gained much attention and have been used in predicting students’ educational and career choices in science education (Kang and Keinonen 2017; Tytler 2014). This study aimed to explore the causal relationship between interest and self-concept in predicting students’ science aspirations, taking gender differences into account using a longitudinal data set
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