The authors conclude that science attainment value significantly predicts computer science course-taking for boys but not for girls (Table 3, β = 0.05 for boys, not significant for girls). However, the study fails to clarify whether the science attainment value measure, based on students’ identity alignment with science (“I see myself as a science person”), meaningfully overlaps with students’ perceptions of computing. Given that science and computing are conceptually distinct in both content and cultural representation, how can the authors justify drawing predictive conclusions about computing behaviors from science identity metrics, especially when computing-specific motivational belief measures are absent from the HSLS:09 dataset?
