Abstract Social cognitive theory guided the design of a survey to investigate high school
students’ perceptions of factors affecting their career contemplations and beliefs regarding the
influence of their participation in the international Science Olympiad on their subject interests
and twenty-first century skills. In addition, gender differences in students’ choice of competition
category were studied. Mixed methods analysis of survey returns from 172 Olympiad
participants from 31 countries showed that students’ career aspirations were affected most by
their teachers, personal interests, and parents, respectively. Students also indicated that they
believed that their participation in the Olympiad reinforced their plan to choose a science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) major at college and assisted them in
developing and improving their twenty-first century skills. Furthermore, female students’
responses indicated that their project choices were less likely to be in the engineering category
and more likely to be in the environment or energy categories. Findings are discussed in the
light of increasing the awareness of the role and importance of Science Olympiads in STEM
career choice and finding ways to attract more female students into engineering careers.