Beyond STEM attrition: changing career plans within STEM fields in college is associated with lower motivation, certainty, and satisfaction about one’s career

International Journal of STEM Education

Table 6 Results of regressions predicting career satisfaction and certainty for expected STEM career plans

Variable	Career satisfaction				Career certainty
Variable	B	S.E.	β	p	B	S.E.	β	p
Intercept	5.64	0.11			5.48	0.12
Plans changing	−0.51	0.06	−0.20	< .001	−0.59	0.07	−0.22	< .001
Gender	0.14	0.07	0.06	.034	0.04	0.07	0.02	.532
Racially minoritized status	0.01	0.08	0.00	.882	−0.02	0.09	−0.01	.816
First-generation status	0.03	0.07	0.01	.681	−0.06	0.08	−0.02	.444
Year in school
Second versus first	0.03	0.07	0.01	.668	0.28	0.08	0.10	< .001
Third versus first	0.21	0.08	0.07	.008	0.52	0.08	0.16	< .001
Fourth vs. first	0.53	0.11	0.12	< .001	0.79	0.12	0.17	< .001
Other vs. first	0.43	0.21	0.05	.044	0.43	0.22	0.05	.053
Field of study
C.S.-related vs. Bio.-related	−0.11	0.11	−0.03	.307	-0.03	0.11	−0.01	.780
Eng.-related vs. Bio.-related	0.10	0.09	0.03	.274	-0.09	0.10	−0.02	.382
Other fields vs. Bio.-related	0.19	0.06	0.08	.003	0.13	0.07	0.05	.059
College GPA	0.06	0.03	0.05	.057	0.07	0.03	0.05	.048

Plans Changing: Yes = 1, No = 0. Gender: Woman = 1, Man = 0. Racially Minoritized Status: Historically marginalized with respect to racial/ethnic identity in STEM = 1, Non-historically marginalized = 0. First-generation status: first-generation student = 1; non-first-generation student = 0. Year in School: Dummy codes representing each year versus the first year (focal year coded as 1, all other groups coded as 0, with first year as the reference group). Field of Study: Dummy codes representing each field of study versus biology-related fields of study (focal field of study coded as 1, all other fields of study coded as 0, with biology-related fields of study as the reference group). College GPA is standardized for analysis