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Abstract
This study explored an under-researched area in science education—the university programmes preferred by high school students who take physical science subjects and the reasons that matter in their preferences. A total of 1,071 upper secondary and pre-university students in Singapore, who take physical science subjects among their range of subjects, participated in this study. A survey method was adopted and the Rasch model was used to analyse the data. Overall, Business Studies was ranked as the predominant choice; nonetheless, scientific programmes such as Science, Engineering, and Mathematics are generally still well liked by the students. When gender differences were examined, we found that students largely followed gender-typical programme preferences, in which males tend to incline towards Engineering while females tend to incline towards Arts and Social Sciences. Students prefer a university programme based on their individual interest and ability, with career aspiration and remuneration coming next. Interestingly, females place greater emphasis on career aspiration than males. Some implications of the study are discussed.
Acknowledgements
We thank the two reviewers for their detailed reading of our manuscript and for providing several helpful suggestions, which have helped us to significantly improve our manuscript. We thank the Ministry of Education for permission to approach schools for this study and the various schools for allowing their students to participate in this study. We thank the Nanyang Technological University for the award of a Research Scholarship to the first author. (The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors, based on their interpretation of the results from this study, and do not necessarily represent those of any of the national agencies mentioned in this paper.)