School effects and subject choice: The uptake of scientific subjects in Ireland

Abstract

Studies of subject take-up within secondary education have tended to focus on student characteristics and have rarely attempted to take account of the broad variety of ways, formal and informal, in which schools can constrain or facilitate particular subject choices. In contrast, this article explores both the school and student factors shaping the take-up of Biology, Physics, and Chemistry at upper secondary level. The analyses draw on detailed information on almost 4,000 students in 100 secondary schools in the Republic of Ireland. Schools are found to differ in the proportion of students taking science subjects, even controlling for the profile of students. School structures at both lower and upper secondary levels are found to play a role in shaping the choices made by students regarding science.

Acknowledgements

This article draws on a larger study of subject choice at upper secondary and tertiary levels which was funded by the Department of Education and Science.

Notes

1. Students take the Junior Certificate exam at approximately 15 years of age and take the Leaving Certificate exam at around 17 – 18 years of age. These exams are nationally standardised and grades achieved at Leaving Certificate level determine entry to tertiary education and are predictive of access to employment.

2. The Transition Year programme may be taken by students upon completion of lower secondary education. The programme is not provided by all schools and schools may determine whether the programme is obligatory for all students in the school. The nature and content of the programme differs across schools (see Smyth, Byrne, & Hannan, 2004).

3. The coefficients for the dummy variables indicating missing information are not shown here for ease of presentation.

4. In recent years, an alternative Leaving Certificate programme (the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme) has been developed which emphasises continuous assessment and project work. However, this track is taken by only 6% of the cohort.

5. At the national level, the take-up of Junior Certificate Science has been fairly static in recent years at around 90% of the cohort.

6. Because of the small number of schools providing Physics-Chemistry (combined), the uptake of this subject is not considered in this article.

7. The effects of social class background on Physics take-up are mediated by ability test score, becoming nonsignificant when ability score is added to the model.

8. This term is not included in the models for Chemistry as no students without lower secondary Science went on to take Chemistry at upper secondary level.

9. This term was not estimated for male students as no male students were in schools where Chemistry, but not Physics, was provided.

10. It should be noted, however, that Biology was a compulsory subject in only three of the schools sampled.