Biodiversity loss and rising global challenges are directly linked to the current climate crisis. Peoples' behaviors and lives are being negatively impacted daily, ushering in a new wave of physiological and emotional distress referred to as eco-anxiety, which is being experienced by young people. Urgent concerns for the need for environmental…

The college major choice is a critical decision students make as they progress along their education and career pathways. In addition to defining what programs of study students will take during college, major choice affects students' success and satisfaction. However, the National Center for Education Statistics (2017) reported that within three…

Background/Context: School districts across the United States face persistent difficulties recruiting and retaining teachers (García & Weiss, 2019; Schmitt & deCourcy, 2022). Over the last decade, every state in the south has faced a growing teacher shortage, with some facing shortages in all grades and subjects (U.S. Department of…

This longitudinal person-centered study aimed to identify profiles of subjective task values and ability self-concepts of adolescents in the domain of mathematics, English, biology, and physics in Grades 10 and 12. We were interested in gendered changes of profile membership, and in relations between profile membership and educational and…

Decisions related to career choice are influenced by person's interactions with his or her environment. The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics of a STEM (Science-Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) career choice. The study included two stages in which two different questionnaires were used. The purpose of the first…

The United States has a shortage of qualified workers in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields (Zhang & Barnett, 2015). There is a critical shortage of underrepresented students seeking science majors and possible science-based careers. The purpose of the study was to examine the perceptions of underrepresented…

Four topics were investigated in this longitudinal person-centered study: (a) profiles of subjective task values and ability self-concepts of adolescents in the domain of mathematics, (b) the stability of and changes to the profiles of motivational beliefs from Grade 7 to 12, (c) the relation of changes to student-perceived classroom…

This study identified decision-making profiles of students who make a choice of a major in higher education. These profiles were examined in a sample of Belgian students at the end of Grade 12, when the educational system expects that these adolescents choose a specific major. Using latent class cluster analysis on adolescents' scores for coping…

A survey of 6th-12th grade students was conducted to measure their science-related attitudes and interests. Significant gender differences were found among these students. Females reported more anxiety about science as well as less motivation in and enjoyment of science than males. In spite of their unfavorable attitudes toward science, a large…

Latino/as are an increasingly large subset of the United States population; however, they continue to be underrepresented in science careers. Because of this increase, research regarding Latino/as has improved, but there are still many gaps in regards to gender-specific predictors to pursue science careers. To address this lack of literature, the…

This longitudinal study examined how adolescents' perceptions of attachment security with parents relate to their process of choosing a major in higher education. The participants were 281 students who were investigated at the beginning, middle, and end of Grade 12. Findings showed that higher perceived security with mother, but not with father,…

During adolescence, one important career-related decision is the choice of a study in higher education. In this article, a new set of measures for different tasks (i.e., orientation, exploration, commitment) that can be distinguished during this career decision-making process was constructed: the Study Choice Task Inventory (SCTI). A sample of 946…