Investigation of factors influencing career choice among STEM undergraduates in Nigeria universities

Abstract

Shortage of expertise in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields have been reported over the years despite financial and social interventions by government through policies and efforts of stakeholders. Remediating the afore stated requires a retrospection into the factors responsible for learners’ choice and career orientation in STEM. As such, this study investigated undergraduates’ choice of STEM field and career orientation employing descriptive research. Undergraduates’ choice of career questionnaire with interpersonal, intrapersonal and career outcome expectancy components formed the instrument with reliability index of 0.86. Purposive sampling was employed in the selection of 200 undergraduates in STEM related disciplines from public universities in Nigeria. Three research questions were raised to evaluate the extent of agreement and variance to each of the factors while three hypotheses were formulated and tested using one-way ANOVA among undergraduates’ choices. From the findings, career outcome expectancy outclassed both interpersonal and intrapersonal factors as reason for career choice. This study recommends that factors considered in this study have the possibility of impacting how institutional policies, educational leaders, and stakeholders determine the kind of support/intervention expected to buffer career choice among STEM students.

Factors influencing career decision of undergraduate and postgraduate students: an Indian context

“…This finding aligns with Betz and Klein (1996), who proposed that career decision outcomes and expectations often lead to career decision-making and career development behaviours (Lent et al. , 2000; Badmus and Jita, 2023). Greenhaus et al .…”

“…In the present study, rewards and recognition are the outcomes one expects before taking a career decision. This finding aligns with Betz and Klein (1996), who proposed that career decision outcomes and expectations often lead to career decision-making and career development behaviours (Lent et al, 2000;Badmus and Jita, 2023). Greenhaus et al (1983) researched similar variables and found that students' career decisions are significantly impacted by their satisfaction with their chosen careers and the likelihood that their chosen profession would provide specific rewards, especially financial remuneration (Akosah-Twumasi et al, 2018), which is also found to be one of the most influential extrinsic factors of career choice decision.…”

Exploring Undergraduates’ Underachievement in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics: Opportunity and Access for Sustainability

“…STEM education remains vital for improved economic development for international competitiveness, job creation and economic relevance (Badmus and Jita, 2023;Baiduc et al, 2016;Ismail et al, 2019). Despite this importance, the teaching and learning of STEM especially at public universities have been plagued with challenges which span from sociocultural issues, teaching resources, basic infrastructures, time allocation and disruption, poor financing and attitude to learning among others (Fong and Kremer, 2020;Fomunyam, 2019).…”