Education intention profiles: Perceived teaching support as a predictor and associations with school completion

Students' education intentions lay a foundation for the pathways they go on to choose. In the present study, we examined school and postsecondary education intentions among Year 10 secondary school students: intentions to complete school, intentions to attend university, and intentions to undertake vocational education and training (VET). We were interested in determining how the different intention variables combine for different types of students, and whether these patterns differ for students from rural, regional, and city locations. Among 40,815 Australian secondary school students, we used latent profile analysis to identify intention profiles. Next, we examined perceived teaching support in Year 9 as a predictor of membership in the intention profiles. We also examined the extent to which profile membership was associated with school completion in Year 12. Results showed that five broadly similar profiles were evident in each of the three locations (with some differences in sizes): Completer-University (40–57% across the locations), Completer-VET (8% across the locations), Completer-Undecided (18–22%), Uncertain-VET (10–17%), and Noncompleter-VET (10–12%). Results also showed that higher levels of perceived teaching support predicted membership in the three “Completer” profiles over the remaining two profiles in all locations. The proportion of students who completed school was highest for the Completer-University profile and lowest for the Noncompleter-VET profile in all locations. There was some nuance in differences between the remaining profiles across locations. Findings hold relevance for efforts aiming to boost school completion rates across different geographic locations and better support students with their post-school decision making.