Predicting 9th Graders’ Science Self-Efficacy and STEM Career Intent: A Multilevel Approach

  1. The personal inputs of being African American, female, and having a science identity predict both science self-efficacy and STEM career intent.
  2. Participating in no extracurricular informal learning experiences predicts both science self-efficacy and STEM career intent, while participating in more than one extracurricular learning experience only predicts self-efficacy.
  3. Background contextual affordances such as socioeconomic status had no relationship to either science self-efficacy or STEM career intent.
  4. Parents who were very confident and somewhat confident in helping their child with science homework predicted science self-efficacy but showed no relationship to STEM career intent.
  5. None of the school-level variables predicted science self-efficacy, but the percentage of students on free/reduced lunch, students in schools located in the city, and students in Catholic schools predicted STEM career intent.
  6. The relationship between contextual affordances (SES and parental support) and science self-efficacy and STEM career intent did vary by sex for both outcome variables regarding socioeconomic status, but not regarding parental support.
  7. The data indicated that being African American (as compared to White), and having a science identity are positively related to student science self-efficacy. In contrast, being female, compared to male is negatively related to science self efficacy.
  8. The data indicated that being a student who participated in more than one extracurricular science activity (science club, science competition, science fair, science museum) as compared to only one activity, was positively associated with science self-efficacy.
  9. Parents who felt very confident or somewhat confident in helping their child with science homework (compared to not being confident at all) was positively related to self-efficacy. Parental support and SES showed no relationship to science self-efficacy.
  10. The percent of students on free/reduced lunch, White and ELL, was unrelated to self-efficacy.
  11. Being African American compared to White, and being female compared to male were negative predictors of STEM career intent.
  12. Based on this study’s findings, educators and policy makers should seek ways to help foster student science identity.
  13. Students not participating in any extracurricular science activities (compared to at least one activity) was negatively related to STEM career intent.
  14. The percent of students on free or reduced lunch and students schools designated as Catholic, compared to public schools, were negative predictors of STEM career intent. Students in schools located in the city compared to the suburbs were more likely to intend to pursue STEM careers.
  15. Once interaction terms were are included in the model, SES shows a statistically significant negative relationship to STEM career intent, which suggests that as income rises, 9th grade are less likely to report intent to pursue a STEM career. The results indicate that there is no interaction effect for sex and parental support; however the results do indicate that there is a positive interaction for sex and SES.
  16. This study makes the case for continued involvement in informal science experiences that provide students a chance to explore science at their own pace in a non-evaluative environment.
  17. While race/ethnicity has traditionally been a predictor of science self-efficacy and STEM career intent, this study suggests that there may be subcategories within race/ethnicity such as cultural perspective and additional constructs such as critical race theories that may shed light on the nuances at play, especially in the case of students who self-identify as African American.