This study examined final year undergraduate chemistry students’ choice of study programme offered at a large research-intensive university in South Africa, applying Social Cognitive Career Theory as a theoretical framework. The sample consisted of 18 students of diverse ethnicity and gender from both the extended curriculum programme and the mainstream programme who had successfully entered their final year chemistry course. These students were interviewed, and the transcripts were subjected to qualitative inductive thematic analysis. The study revealed that chemistry was a second-choice option for most of the students. Retrospective criteria significantly influenced the choice for the majority of extended curriculum programme students, especially those who chose chemistry as a second option. For the majority of the mainstream students who chose chemistry as either first or second option, it was a mixture of retrospective and prospective criteria, with a bias towards the prospective criteria. For this study, the university’s requirement of a second major for the Bachelor of Science degree was an emerging reason for students choosing chemistry.

中文翻译：

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大学三年级学生选择化学的方法

本研究以社会认知职业理论为理论框架，研究了南非一所大型研究型大学提供的大学本科化学专业学生的学习计划选择。样本由扩展课程计划和主流课程的18名不同种族和性别的学生组成，他们已经成功进入了最后的化学课程。对这些学生进行了采访，并对笔录进行了定性归纳主题分析。研究表明，化学是大多数学生的第二选择。回顾性标准极大地影响了大多数扩展课程学生的选择，尤其是那些选择化学作为第二选择的学生。对于大多数将化学作为第一或第二选择的主流学生，这是回顾性和前瞻性标准的混合，偏向于前瞻性标准。对于本研究，该大学对理学学士学位第二专业的要求是学生选择化学的新兴原因。