Pixel International Conferences

Education is crucial in everyday life and it entails important choices at various stages during a student’s secondary and post-secondary years. At certain stages of their schooling process, students need to choose which subjects to study and such decisions affect their future careers and working lives. Students are ‘guided’ and ‘influenced’ in their subject choice by a number of factors, such as a preferred career path, the influence of parents and/or peers, the drive to learn the subject, etc. In Malta, following their secondary school, at 16 years of age, students have to choose their Advanced (A) level subjects at post-secondary level, a choice that has a direct bearing on their eventual tertiary education. This research study investigates the reasons influencing subject choice at Sixth Form level in Malta. The research sample consisted of two groups of second-year Science students, namely, 243 A level Biology and Chemistry (BC) students and 116 Pure Mathematics and Physics (PMP) students. Questionnaires were used as the main research tool. The questionnaires were constructed following an investigation conducted with ten experts, who were requested to list three factors – according to them – that influence students in their A level subject choice. The research outcome showed that the experts, the BC and the PMP student groups did not always concur on the most or least influential factors influencing subject choice. According to the students, the most influential factor for their choice of subjects was ‘career aspirations’. Experts believed that ‘career aspirations’ and ‘subject difficulty’ are the main influences. There was no clear agreement among BC students, PMP students and experts on the least influential factors (from among ‘Secondary Education Certificate results’, ‘family and peer influence’, and ‘lack of passion towards the subjects’).

Keywords: Subject choice, Sixth Form, Science subjects;