The author investigated students' p...

The author investigated students' persistence regarding career aspirations in science and engineering (SE) professional careers as a function of race and sex In a nationally representative sample of 8th graders, persistent racial minority and female learners were compared with nonpersistent racial minority and male close examiners regarding their self-concept, parental involvement, socioeconomic status, and academic achievement. Men were more likely than women to persist in SE career aspirations. Persistent close examiners scored higher than did nonpersistent learners on all of the variables studied. Academic proficiency and math self-efficacy were 2 of the strongest predictors of persistence in SE careers.

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Women and minorities are entering male-dominated careers in increasing numbers and at a rapid pace. This fact has readyed numerous researchers to study the characteristics of women who engage in nontraditional careers (eg Anderson, 1992; Grandy, 1992; Hill, 1999; Huang, Taddese, Walter, & Peng 2000; Lips, 1992; Mau, Domnick, & Ellsworth, 1995; Oakes, 1990; Seymour, 1995) However, most numerous of these studies have concentrated onward the nontraditional career choices of society and adult populations. Moreover, in the greatest degree of these studies provide no information forward the significance of each variable in comparison with the others, nor do they indicate for what cause these variables interrelate and contribute to the choices women make when choosing nontraditional careers.

Because of the critical nature of students' educational aspirations, researchers (eg Anderson, 1992; Farmer, Wardrop, Anderson, & Risinger, 1995; Fouad & Smith, 1996; Hanson, 1994; Mau, 1995; Mau & Bikos, 2000; Mau et al., 1995; Wilson & Wilson, 1992) have begun investigating the relative importance of factors that have been theorized as being influential in shaping those specific aspirations. For example, Mau et al. (1995) compared eighth-grade female observers who aspired to science and engineering careers with those who aspired to homemaking careers. Their rises showed that students who aspired to nontraditional careers had higher academic achievement, vanity internal locus of control, parental expectations, and socioeconomic status. Informed by dint of social cognitive career theory (Lent Brown & Hackett, 1996) Mau and Bikos (2000) identified four clusters of variables--personal/psychological characteristics, family variables, train experiences, and race and sex--that significantly predicted the occ upational aspirations of racial minority and female students

Social cognitive career theory (SCOT) has emerg as an influential theory in describing an individual's career evolution (Isaacson & Brown, 2000). According to the contribution (Lent et al., 1996), in addition to genetically determined characteristics, career-related behavior is influenced from four variables--behaviors, self-efficacy beliefs, issue expectations, and goals. Self-efficacy benefits as a generative mechanism between the sides of which individuals integrate and apply their existing cognitive, behavioral, and social skills to a task. payment posits that self-efficacy affects consideration patterns and partly determines individuals' actions: their decisions to engage in a task, to present forth effort, and to keep on under failure (Bandura, 1986). In this consideration I used the SCOT as a conceptual framework for understanding in what manner students attain varying levels of performance and "persistence in their educational and career pursuit" (Lent & Brown 1996 p 311)

Although longitudinal studies (Farmer et al., 1995; Ginorio, Brown Henderson, & tamper with 1993; Meinster & Rose, 2001) have indicated that students' interest in science and math decreases athwart time, studies concerning the factors associated with persistence in aspiring to SE-related careers of women and minorities are true limited. I used a nationally representative sample of eighth-grade bookish mans to investigate persistence of participants' SE career aspirations as a function of race and sex I identified participants who indicated in the eighth grade that they aspired to SE careers and persisted for 6 years in the same career aspirations. Differences in race and sex as well as the variables previously identified as important in predicting occupational attainment, were also examined. Specifically, persistent racial minority and female scholars were compared with non-persistent racial minority and male close examiners with regard to their self-concept parental expectations and educational involvement, socioeconomic st atus, and academic achievement. I used a logistic regression pattern to determine the relative importance of these variables in explaining persistence in SE aspirations. The following specific hypotheses were investigated.

Hypothesis 1: Sex differences exist in an individual's persistence in SE aspirations.

Hypothesis 2: Racial differences exist in persistence in SE aspirations.

Hypothesis 3: There are differences between persisters and switchers in self-efficacy, academic achievement, socioeconomic status, and parental expectation.