The presentation will examine the vocational interests of young people living in Scottish rural communities. These young people belonged to Scottish state secondary schools whose catchment areas are mainly rural and deprived. All were in S5/Year 12 or S6/Year 13 and aged 16 or more. It will identify (1) how these vocational interests could influence pupils’ decision to pursue their education at university and (2) policy lessons to broaden young people’s interest towards some academic subjects.

The choice of a subject to be studied in higher education (HE) is influenced by not only academic abilities but also other factors such as expected earnings, parents’ approval, gender or race (e.g. Zafar (2013), Wiswall and Zafar (2014), Bowen and Bok (2016)). Another strand of the literature links this choice to psychological factors such as vocational interest and shows how these can explain student learning and achievement (e.g. Smart et al (2004), Pike (2016), Fonteyne et al (2017), Kankaras (2017)).

The presentation sits within this second strand but adds a twist. As above, we hypothesise that vocational interests affect the choice of subjects in tertiary education. In particular, we highlight gender similarities and differences in terms of vocational interests and subjects. We depart from it by considering that the school environment can explain the spectrum of vocational interests among pupils and therefore influence the choice of subjects to be studied at Scottish HE institutions.

The presentation will provide an in-depth analysis of the exploratory research of Lasselle and Kirby (2019). It aims to highlight whether young people’s vocational interests could explain the under-representation of some students in some subjects taught at HE level.

The presentation is motivated by trends characterising Scottish students and Scottish Government HE policies. Indeed, in Scotland, (1) young people from Scottish rural areas are less likely to go to university than those from non-rural areas, (2) the drop-out rate of Scottish students is higher than that of non-Scottish students and (3) the Scottish government has set an ambitious ambition to be achieved by 2030:  no university subject will have a student gender imbalance exceeding 75:25. It is also driven by the common knowledge that adequate support and information during the study choice process could reduce dropping-out and improve success rates. Indeed, ‘students that carefully explore their options are more likely to end up in a major that suits their interests and potential, which in turn will lead to higher retention’ (Fonteyne et al, 2017).

Our findings will allow us to recommend initiatives broadening young people’s interests towards some academic subjects led by universities and rural schools. Some of them could be extended to more urban settings.

Although our presentation is based on the Scottish context, it has wider application. Our examination can be replicated elsewhere. Firstly, the tool we have developed to investigate vocational interests mimics elements of the tool used in Flanders. Similar tools have been used in many universities and in career counselling. Secondly, our examination allows us to contribute to the current debate on gender imbalance in Scotland. However, the debate is not limited to Scotland and our recommendations could be replicated elsewhere.

Our investigation allows us to highlight whether young people’s vocational interests could explain the under-representation of some students in some subjects taught at HE level. This investigation rests on the in-depth analysis of some young Scots’ vocational interests from their responses to an online tool that we have developed. The latter replicates some elements of Fonteyne et al (2017)’s tool used in the Flemish part of Belgium. Our tool presents a list of statements about activities and occupations the participants may (or may not) like. To each activity and each profession is associated a vocational interest. From the aggregation of their responses, the tool estimates the most relevant vocational interests of the user. (For their benefits, it also offers suggestions for subject(s) they may wish to study at university. Each suggested subject includes a list of links to further information.) The use of standard quantitative methods techniques allows us to examine systematically the responses of a sample of over 600 pupils, almost evenly divided by gender. We study their vocational interests in the light of (1) their gender and (2) the area their school is located. We discuss our results according to the literature findings, in particular Smart et al (2004), Fonteyne et al (2017) and Lasselle and Kirby (2019). We argue that the Scottish government should review some of its guidance regarding access to HE for young people living in rural communities. We also recommend the creation of innovative outreach activities in order to broaden young Scots’ interests towards some academic disciplines. For instance, from the use of Holland (1997)’s theory we explain how an activity taking account vocational interests could foster enrolment of female pupils towards STEM (science, technology, engineering and technology) subjects.

Our presentation will document the interactions between vocation interests of pupils and gender and location. In particular, we will show that vocational interests are usually more diverse among female pupils than male pupils, which could lead to the potential choice of different subjects at Scottish HE institutions. We will also highlight that patterns of vocational interests depending on the school environment could explain some disparities across schools in terms of progression to HE. From these findings, we could recommend that (1) guidance teachers and career advisers have better access to information regarding Scottish HE courses (2) curriculum developers and policy-makers revisit what needs to be done in order to broaden young people's interests towards some academic disciplines, in particular those living in rural communities.

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