Predicting academic and career choice: The role of transformative experience, connection to instructor, and gender accounting for interest/identity and contextual factors

• Published in: Journal of research in science teaching 2021-08, Vol.58 (6), p.822-851
• Main Authors: Pugh, Kevin J., Paek, Sue Hyeon, Phillips, Michael M., Sexton, Julie M., Bergstrom, Cassendra M., Flores, Selani D., Riggs, Eric M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Career Choice; Careers; Context Effect; Decision making models; Earth Science; Females; gender; Gender Differences; Gender identity; geoscience education; Identification (Psychology); Majors (Students); Males; motivation; Occupational choice; Path Analysis; Predictor Variables; recruitment; retention; Science Interests; social cognitive career theory; STEM pathways; Students; Teacher Student Relationship; Teachers; transformative experience; Transformative Learning
• ISSN: 0022-4308; 1098-2736
• DOI: 10.1002/tea.21680

We used the social‐cognitive choice model (Lent et al., 2018) as a framework for investigating academic and career choice in the domain of geoscience for male and female students. In addition, we explored the role of perceived connection to instructors and transformative experience as additional factors in the social‐cognitive choice model. A total of 525 individuals from six geoscience departments participated. We conducted three path models with confidence in geoscience among majors (Model 1), intent to major in geoscience among non‐majors (Model 2), and intent to pursue a career in geoscience (Model 3) as outcome variables. Overall, the baseline social‐cognitive choice model explained a moderate amount of variance with variation by model and gender. Students' interest in and identification with geoscience was an important direct predictor of outcomes in all three models. Adding connection to instructor to the baseline model significantly increased the model fit and contributed to the amount of variance explained in Models 2 and 3, but not Model 1. Further, connection to instructor was found to mediate the relation between interest/identity and outcomes as well as directly predict outcomes in Models 2 and 3. These results held for male and female students. Adding transformative experience to the baseline plus connection to instructor model further increased the model fit and contributed to the amount of variance explained for female student in Models 2 and 3, but not for Model 1 and not for male students. Further, transformative experience was found to mediate the relation between interest/identity and outcomes as well as directly predict outcomes in all three models, but only for female students. These results suggest instructors may strengthen geoscience pathways by developing students' interest in geoscience, establishing connections with students, and, for female students, fostering transformative experiences.