Students Attitudes Surrounding STEM: A Social Cognitive Career Theory Instrument for High School

Abstract

To broaden participation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), we must understand the factors that shape perspectives and beliefs around career selection. Good measurement of these factors is crucial to quantify how effectively educational interventions impact student attitudes towards STEM. Adolescents are particularly suited for quantifying intervention efficacy because students build their identities during these formative years and make important career choices. To better quantify intervention efficacy at the high school level, we developed an instrument entitled Student Attitudes Surrounding STEM (SASS), which builds upon the social cognitive career theory (SCCT) framework for understanding career selection. Questionnaire responses were collected from 932 high school students and split into samples of 400 for exploratory factor analysis and 532 for confirmatory factor analysis. The 37 questions clustered into six factors: Self-Efficacy-Experience, Self-Efficacy-Academic, Outcome Expectations, Interests, Negative Perceptions of Scientists, and Career Awareness. Adequate construct validity for the factors indicated in the SASS model was suggested by the fit indices and theoretical considerations. Furthermore, the analyses supported criterion validity, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability. This tool represents a novel integration of three latent variables into SCCT: Negative Perceptions of Scientists, Career Awareness, and an experience factor for Self-Efficacy.