engleski

The relationship between intelligence, basic personality traits and motivational beliefs in exploring students’ interest in STEM school subjects

Expectancy-value theory is widely used for explanation of different educational outcomes, since it considers mutual influences of different groups of student characteristics, psychological processes and characteristics of wider social surroundings. Using this theoretical framework, focus of this study was to examine contribution of intelligence and personality, as stable person individual difference traits, and task values, as motivational constructs in explanation of interest in STEM school subjects in elementary and middle school period. STEM field (i.e. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) is in recent research increasingly studied as a separate field of educational outcomes. The data used for this study is a subset of data collected through a larger Croatian longitudinal research project aimed at examining and explaining students’ STEM achievement, interest and aspirations during elementary and middle school. Analyses were conducted on a subsample of participants, 523 of them (265 female), who were followed in sixth, seventh, and eighth school grade. Data on personality and intelligence were collected while students were in the sixth grade (T1), data on subjective task values was collected while students were in the seventh grade (T2), and data on interest in STEM school subjects was collected while students were in eighth grade (T3). Data on average school grade from STEM subjects at the end of sixth and seventh grade was also included in the analyses as control variables. In order to examine direct effects of personality and intelligence, as well as their indirect effects through task values, path analysis was used. Results have shown that interest in STEM school subjects can be explained by students’ agreeableness and consciousness, as well as with intrinsic task value they assign to STEM school subjects. There were also significant indirect effects of conscientiousness and openness through intrinsic values on interest. The students who are higher on these two personality traits had higher intrinsic task values, which then led to a higher interest in STEM school subjects. Findings of the present study highlight the importance of considering not only independent contribution, but also the interplay between different groups of students’ characteristics. They also point that intrinsic task value is at least partly determined by stable characteristics, so further research could examine the interplay between stable and situational characteristics in prediction of student motivation.

interest in STEM, personality, intelligence, motivation, elementary school

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