“We are sorry to inform you…”—The effects of early elimination on science competition participants’ career aspirations

Abstract

In the past, students' participation in science competitions has been positively associated with their aspirations to pursue a career in science. Previous studies, however, were predominantly focused around successful competitors, overlooking the largest group of participants: those who are faced with early elimination. We therefore aimed to investigate the effects of elimination on the development of biology-related study and career task values and expectancy of success in first-round participants of the German Biology Olympiad (N = 381, mean age 16.5 years, 72% female). This study was the first of its kind to use a latent change score model approach to examine the effects of early elimination, with a particular focus on participants who placed great emphasis on succeeding in the competition. We found that, regardless of success or failure, participants' biology-related study and career task value remained stable from the first to the second round of the competition, while their expectancy of success in biology-related studies and career developed positively. Yet, for those participants who placed great importance on advancing in the competition, early elimination interfered with the development of study and career expectations, resulting in a weaker development. The outcomes of this study suggest that (1) science competitions should re-envision themselves to more directly address participants' values about studies and careers, especially in earlier competition rounds, and (2) science competitions should find innovative ways to provide detailed feedback to students and teachers to improve post-elimination performance. Our findings complement existing expectancy-value research and can serve as a starting point for future studies exploring mechanisms behind early elimination in different science domains and cultural contexts, providing empirical insight into creating an inclusive and supportive environment for all science competition competitors.