Students’ low aspirations for and enrolment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) domains have been a concern in many regions. However, not much is known about the mechanism of how young students construct their STEM aspirations or reject them with their limited, biased, or stereotypical perceptions of these careers. This study aimed to explore the role played by perceptions of STEM careers in children’s career aspiration construction in light of social cognitive career theory (developed by Brown & Lent, The career development quarterly, 44(4), 354-366 1996) and cognitive information processing (CIP, developed by Peterson et al., 1996) theory. We conducted semi-structured individual in-depth interviews with 28 5th and 6th-grade students, before conducting thematic analysis on the interview data. Results indicated that students construct STEM career aspirations based on occupational knowledge and self-knowledge generated from their experiences. Moreover, biased perceptions of STEM careers (e.g., engineers as laborers in construction) are related to negative outcome expectations (e.g., dangerous, exhausted), whom students choose as references when considering a career, and what can be considered as sources for career-related self-efficacies. A theoretical model was proposed to explain how perceptions of careers shape students’ STEM aspiration. The findings suggest that educators should be aware that students’ expressed career aspirations may be biased, and interventions promoting both occupational- and self-knowledge regarding STEM careers are needed.
