Career exploration across STEM education-to-career pathways: A systematic review and evidence-informed conceptual framework

Abstract

Career exploration is increasingly recognised as an important process in shaping how students understand, evaluate, and navigate STEM education and career pathways. However, existing evidence remains fragmented across educational stages, learning contexts, psychological mechanisms, and equity-related conditions, limiting an integrated understanding of how career exploration operates across STEM education-to-career pathways. This systematic review synthesised recent empirical evidence and developed an evidence-informed conceptual framework. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, journal articles published between 2022 and 2026 were identified through Scopus and Web of Science. After database filtering, duplicate removal, screening, and full-text eligibility assessment, 28 empirical studies were included and analysed using a hybrid inductive-deductive thematic synthesis. Five interrelated themes emerged: career exploration as a structured developmental process; experiential, informal, and out-of-school STEM learning as career exploration contexts; social-cognitive and psychological mechanisms linking STEM experiences to career outcomes; career exploration across educational transitions and STEM career pathways; and equity, gender, and access in STEM career exploration. The synthesis indicates that career exploration functions as a recurrent and context-sensitive developmental process that supports career awareness, clarification, refinement, persistence, redirection, and transition across STEM pathways. Its operation is shaped by learning experiences, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, identity, social support, and access to meaningful career-development opportunities. The resulting framework integrates these processes and positions career exploration as an important developmental link between STEM learning experiences and educational and occupational pathway decisions.