Development of the Theory of Planned Behaviour Questionnaire: Students’ Career Choices in STEM

Abstract

Much effort has been invested to drive students’ career choices in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), however the targeted outcome of the effort has not yet been fully achieved. The understanding towards the students’ career choice intention in STEM is scarce despite the great importance to identify students’ career choices. This suggests that there is a need to improve the measurement of the factors in the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to better explain students’ intention towards deciding STEM career choices. Therefore, the objective of the current paper study is to develop a TPB questionnaire to assess secondary school students’ career choices in STEM. Questionnaire measures the factors that influence career choices among students in STEM namely attitude towards career choice, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, and career choice intention. The development of the questionnaire involved three pilot tests, namely Study 1 (n = 56), Study 2 (n = 32), and Study 3 (n = 45). Multiple modifications were done based on the pilot test results to improve the questionnaire so that it is apt for the target sample of the research and suitable for the context of the research. Further research can be done using confirmatory factor analysis and provide external evidence of validity for the questionnaire. This is essentially important as it would help the researchers to develop a valid and reliable research instrument to measure students’ career choices in STEM.