Abstract
Introduction: Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are growing rapidly and understanding adolescent's interest and hope for pursuing a STEM career is essential for additional growth and opportunity collectively and individually. Hope is a cognitive–motivational construct that includes three components: hopeful future expectations (HFEs), intentional self-regulation (ISR), and connection, and is associated with academic achievement and career pursuit; it has not been examined in relation to STEM. This study fills a gap in the literature by taking a multimethod approach to understanding the association between adolescents' hope and STEM career interests. Methods: Participants were 639 middle- and high-school adolescents in the southwestern United States who quantitatively reported their hope and STEM career interests and provided qualitative descriptions of reasons for wanting to pursue a STEM career. Results: Quantitatively, HFEs significantly and positively predicted STEM career interest. Relations were examined by gender and school level. For middle-school girls, ISR significantly predicted STEM career interest, for middle-school boys and high-school girls, HFEs positively significantly predicted STEM career interest, but results of high-school boys were nonsignificant. Qualitatively, adolescents mentioned reasons aligning with HFEs and ISR as motivations for pursuing a STEM career, as well as prosocial motivations. Additionally, they discussed their interest in a STEM career as a way to pursue other goals such as financial stability. Discussion: Findings highlight the possibility of hope as a malleable motivation for STEM career pursuit. Our findings support the components of hope as a salient associate of early STEM career interest, with adolescents who have high HFEs and ISR being particularly apt to say they would like to pursue a STEM career. Our results support the active development of hope among US adolescents as a catalyst toward personal and global success.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1163-1178 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Journal of Adolescence |
Volume | 94 |
Issue number | 8 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 2022 |
Keywords
- STEM
- adolescence
- hope
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Pediatrics, Perinatology, and Child Health
- Social Psychology
- Developmental and Educational Psychology
- Psychiatry and Mental health