Latent Profile Analysis of Secondary School Students on Science Career Commitment in Indian Context

Abstract

Science Career Commitment is an important construct that determines one’s attitude and motivation towards choosing a profession on science. As per the global need for the progress of science and technology, it is essential to encourage young individuals to choose Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) as career. Hence it is essential to understand students’ profile on the basis of science career commitment, so that proper intervention will be designed to meet the need. This study involves a total of 1125 secondary school students (659boys and 466 girls) as sample. Latent Profile Analysis was conducted by using tidy LPA package of R version 4.2.3. the model used in this study were Model 1 and Model 2 with variance and co-variance as equal-zero and varying-varying respectively. The estimands used for the study were AIC, BIC, entropy, BLRT-P value, n-max and n-min etc. Three distinct profiles on science career commitment such as High, Moderate and Low were explored. The objectives and the significance of the study are discussed.