2026-04-27T11:47:59Zhttps://riubu.ubu.es/oai/request

oai:riubu.ubu.es:10259/101432025-02-01T01:05:31Zcom_10259_4145com_10259_5086com_10259_2604col_10259_4146

Perceived Difficulty of School Science and Cost Appraisals: a Valuable Relationship for the STEM Pipeline? Toma, Radu Bogdan Expectancy-value Loss of valued alternatives Task effort Perceived difficulty Regression analysis Psicología Enseñanza Psychology Teaching The lack of students interested in pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related careers calls for studies that identify variables affecting their career decisions. By drawing on recent conceptualizations of the cost domain first introduced in the expectancy-value theory of achievement motivations, this study investigated whether the perceived difficulty of school science predicted and affected elementary school students (N = 245) task effort and loss of valued alternatives experienced while engaging in a science-related course. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that students’ perceived difficulty significantly predicted levels of cost experienced when studying science. Likewise, multi-factor ANOVAs revealed that students perceiving school science as a difficult subject reported significantly higher levels of task effort and loss of valued alternatives related to studying science. These findings suggest that the attitudinal dimensions of perceived difficulty play a promising role in the development of cost in science, which has valuable implications for repairing the leaky STEM pipeline. This investigation was conducted under the Ph.D. research fellowship Resolución de 19 de mayo de 2017 del Vicerrector de Investigación y Transferencia del Conocimiento para financiar contratos predoctorales de la Universidad de Burgos [Resolution of 19 May 2017 of the Vice-Rector for Research and Knowledge Transfer to finance Ph.D. research fellowships at the University of Burgos], granted to the author of this study. 2025-01-31T17:08:42Z 2025-01-31T17:08:42Z 2022-04 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion 0157-244X http://hdl.handle.net/10259/10143 10.1007/s11165-020-09963-5 1573-1898 eng Research in Science Education. 2022, V. 52, n. 2, p. 553–565 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-020-09963-5 info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess application/pdf Springer