A Survey of Psychological, Motivational, Family and Perceptions of Physics Education Factors That Explain 15-Year-Old Students’ Aspirations to Study Physics in Post-Compulsory English Schools

Abstract

This paper investigates the factors that influence 15 year-old students' intentions to study physics post-16, when it is no longer compulsory. The analysis is based on the year 10 (age 15 years) responses of 5034 students from 137 England schools as learners of physics during the academic year 2008-09. Factor analyses uncovered a range of physicsspecific constructs, seven of which were statistically significantly associated with intention to study physics post-16 in our final multi-level model; in descending order of effect size these are extrinsic material gain motivation, intrinsic value of physics, home support for achievement in physics, emotional response to physics lessons, perceptions of physics lessons, physics self-concept and advice-pressure to study physics. A further analysis using individual items from the survey rather than constructs (aggregates of items) supported the finding that extrinsic motivation in physics was the most important factor associated with intended participation. In addition, this item-level analysis indicated that within the advicepressure to study physics construct the encouragement individual students receive from their teachers is the key factor that encourages them to intend to continue with physics post-16.

“I Fall Asleep in Class … But Physics Is Fascinating”: The Use of Large-Scale Longitudinal Data to Explore the Educational Experiences of Aspiring Girls in Mathematics and Physics

“…These findings suggest that the classroom environment can disadvantage girls within physics lessons and quite possibly may have an impact on physics subject choice in the longer term. Indeed, our multivariate analysis in another paper of an older cohort of students (within this same project) demonstrated that teachers not encouraging students to continue with physics post-16 was negatively associated with aspirations to study physics post-16 (Mujtaba & Reiss, 2013a, 2013b. More positively, of course, the classroom environment provided by teachers can encourage students to continue with a subject once it is no longer compulsory, and there is now a developing literature that provides specific guidance for classroom teachers (e.g., Institute of Physics, 2015).…”

“…These findings indicate that having high levels of extrinsic material gain motivation may possibly be linked to high aspirations. In our analysis of an older cohort of students within this same project, we have found using linear modeling that there is strong effect size of extrinsic material gain motivation and aspirations to continue with each of these subjects (Mujtaba & Reiss, 2013a;Mujtaba, Reiss, Rodd, & Simon, 2015).…”

Dimensions of science capital: exploring its potential for understanding students’ science participation

“…While these findings are not necessarily surprising, they also align with previous research around who does and does not continue to participate in science. For instance, Mujtaba and Reiss (2014) found that perceived utility of science qualifications (for a desired career) was very strongly predicted students' choice to continue with physics (or mathematics) after it was no longer compulsory. In addition, substantive previous work also emphasises the key role of family support in students' continued pursuit of science (e.g.…”

Changes in Children’s Science-Related Career Aspirations from Age 11 to Age 14

“…Many prior studies have considered students' aspirations through the extent of their agreement or disagreement towards intending to study more science in the future and/or towards following science careers (e.g. DeWitt and Archer 2015;Mujtaba and Reiss 2014). Different indicators may provide different insights, and future research may benefit from applying multiple measures.…”