Scientific Career Aspirations Among Indian Students: The Roles Of Science Capital, Self-Efficacy, And Social Context.

The desires to pursue a scientific career are not just a result of academic achievement, they are created in terms of beliefs about science by students, the resources and connections that science feels like it belongs to me, and the opportunity it appears to them to offer. The existing literature indicates that career goals in science are structured by social benefit and exposure to science-related resources (science capital), and that interest is transformed into career intentions with the assistance of self-efficacy and social resources (Archer et al., 2012; Archer et al., 2015; DeWitt and Archer, 2015). The lack of balance in STEM access and gender roles still affects the people who can and cannot dream of and follow careers in science in India (Gopinath, 2025; Gupta, 2022). The present paper represents an empirical-type research report based on a structured survey design and illustrative (synthetic) data to show how the constructs in question can be analyzed in an Indian student sample. Scientific career aspiration, science self-efficacy, science capital, parental support, school exposure, and perceived barriers were measured using a cross-sectional questionnaire (N = 480; Classes XI -XII and first-year undergraduate students). Multiple regression showed science self-efficacy and science capital to have the largest predictive ability in scientific career aspiration, and perceived barriers had a negative ability in predicting aspiration. The differences in sex were partially described by the differences in self-efficacy, access to mentoring and perceived fit. Results support the significance of science enrichment in schools, visible role models, formal mentoring, and family facing career information as key intervention mechanisms to increase the range of participation in scientific careers in India.