APPRAISING SCIENCE CAREER INTERESTS IN ADOLESCENT GIRLS AND BOYS

Science career choice is partly determined by precursors such as enrol lment in science and mathematics courses, which are, in turn, determin ed by factors such as attitudes toward science, participation in scien ce activities, and science career preference. Participants were 1,501 students, Grades 4 through 10, from a large, national intervention stu dy. Independent variables were gender and grade. Dependent variables m easured attitude, activities, and career preference. Multivariate, uni variate, and discriminant analysis and chi-square tests of association were used. Girls were less likely than boys to see science as a male activity or to believe they had not received serious attention from th eir science teachers. In contrast, girls were less likely than boys to see science as a fun puzzle to be solved. On three out of four measur es of interest in Realistic and Investigative careers (Holland, 1997), girls showed less interest than boys. There were no gender difference s for science activities and no gender-by-grade interaction effects. R esults confirm the complex nature of attraction to a career in science and shed some light on differences between boys and girls in the unde rstructure of science career interest.