Understanding subject choices from report card grades: gender and educational level disparities

Pupils’ subject choices at the level of secondary education critically determine the tertiary fields of study that they can pursue. This study used multinomial logistic regression models to investigate the extent to which the final report card grades of ninth-grade students predicted their choices of subject combinations at the senior general secondary education (N = 771) and pre-university education (N = 494) levels. Final report card grades determined 55.4% to 64.1% of the pupils’ choices. The most relevant predictors were pupils’ grades for mathematics, history, economics, physics, chemistry, and English language. Differential and interaction effects of educational level and gender were evident. For example, at the level of senior general education, mathematics and chemistry were stronger influencers of the choices of girls than of boys, whereas at the pre-university education level, these subjects were stronger influencers for boys than for girls.