Through the lens of science capital, this research aims to detect the key factors and their main effects in identifying students with science-related career expectations. A machine learning approach (i.e., random forest) was employed to analyze a dataset of 519,334 15-year-old students from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)…

Science excellence is associated not only with a student's inherent aptitude but also a range of contextual factors. The objective of this paper was to identify the most important contextual characteristics of top performers in scientific literacy, by simultaneously considering factors at the PISA questionnaire-based student, family, and school…

Previous research has underlined the importance of school students' engagement in science (including students' attitudes, interests and self beliefs). Engagement in science is important as a correlate of scientific literacy and attainment, and as an educational outcome in its own right. Students positively engaged with science are more likely to…