The effects of perceived relevance of participation in science-oriented out-of-school time activities on university students’ performance and persistence

Literature has shown that Out-of-School-Time (OST) activities are important experiences for developing interest in science careers. However, while participation in science-oriented OST activities has become widespread in secondary education, their role on subsequent undergraduate career remains largely underexplored. In this longitudinal study, we explored how the perceived relevance of the participation in science-oriented OST-activities affects students’ early performance and later persistence in an undergraduate course. A sample of N = 565 Italian students from six science and technology majors (biology, biotechnology, biochemistry, computer science, mathematics, physics) who participated during high school in science-oriented OST programmes was involved in the study. The results show that the perceived relevance of OST activities positively affects both directly and indirectly, through motivation to persist, the students’ early performance at first year and later persistence at the third year. Moderation analysis shows that gender affects these relationships, and that the moderation effect depends on the chosen undergraduate major. Specifically, while for biology, biotechnology, biochemistry courses such relationship is statistically significant only for male students, for physics, maths and computer science courses, the effects are significant also for female students. Results support the relevance of OST activities in the choice and persistence in a science undergraduate course.