Trait, State, and Anticipated Emotions Predict STEM Career Intentions

• In Event: How Do You Feel About STEM? Examining the Overlooked Role of Emotions for Career Aspirations

Abstract

Theoretical Framework and Objectives. Emotions have gathered increasing attention in educational research in recent years. However, despite their assumed importance for decision-making (Peters, Västfjäll, Gärling, & Slovic, 2006), the role of emotions for students’ career plans remains unclear. In the present research, we argue that students’ emotions with regard to STEM subjects will considerably shape their intentions to choose related careers (Baumeister, Vohs, DeWall, & Zhang, 2007; Eccles, 1985; Mellers & McGraw, 2001). This hypothesis was investigated in two studies. In Study 1, the extent to which actual emotional states (e.g., states of joy or anger) are predictive of the intention to pursue a math-intensive career was compared to the predictive validity of trait emotions. In Study 2, anticipated emotional states in several STEM university majors were investigated as predictors of students’ intended field of study.

Method and Results.
Study 1: Predictive Validity of Trait versus State Emotions
In Study 1, 772 grade 9 and 10 students were asked about their discrete mathematics-specific trait emotions of enjoyment, pride, anger, and anxiety. Furthermore, they were asked about their respective state emotions during a three week period after each mathematics lesson. In addition, their intention to choose a career in a math-intensive field (e.g., engineering) and their mathematics self-concept were assessed. In line with our hypotheses, hierarchical linear regression modeling showed positive emotions to positively predict career intention and negative emotions to negatively predict intention with trait enjoyment being the strongest predictor followed by anger, pride, and anxiety, respectively. Trait ratings of emotions were significantly stronger predictors of students’ career intentions than state emotions. Trait enjoyment and anger were predictive over and above self-concept.
Study 2: Anticipated Emotions
In Study 2, 81 (47 female) 11th and 12th graders rated the anticipated frequency of their pride, contentment, anxiety, and anger if they were to study engineering, computer science, physics, mathematics, or biology at university. We compared their anticipated emotions and self-efficacies intra-individually across these popular STEM majors to predict their intentions to choose each subject as their major. As expected, anticipated emotions predicted intentions over and above the covariates gender and high school math grade. The strongest predictor was anticipated contentment, followed by pride, and, negatively, anxiety and anger. When self-efficacy in the major was taken into account, only the positive emotions incrementally predicted study intentions.

Discussion and Significance. The results thus suggest that emotions, manifested in present, generalized past, or future experience, deserve more attention in research on career intentions, especially in STEM domains. The present work suggests that trait emotions in a subject are better predictors of career intentions than aggregated state emotions (Wirtz, Kruger, Napa Scollon, & Diener, 2003), and that positive anticipated emotions in a subject are better predictors than negative anticipated emotions. Future research should further examine how state and trait emotions are related to anticipated emotions and how they fit within existing models regarding the development of career intentions.

Authors

• Carolin Schuster, University of Passau

• Madeleine Bieg, University of Konstanz

• Kyle Adam Hubbard, McGill University