86 Introduction Students’ interest towards science and technology and inter- est in careers in those ields have been intensively researched since the 1960s. It is known that science in general is quite interesting for students, but most students, especially girls, do not ind school science and technology or careers and occupations in those ields interesting (Woolnough, 1996; Boser, Palmer & Daugherty, 1998; Jones, Howe & Rua, 2000; Osborne, Simon & Collins, 2003; EU, 2004; EU, 2005). According to international ROSE (Schreiner & Sjøberg, 2005) and SAS surveys (Sjøberg, 2000) the social position of scientists and engineers has weakened in developed countries and their lifestyle appears unattractive to students: working hard and alone in a laboratory. Science and technology occupations are perceived as being of too low in status in relation to the workload. Conse- quently, lack of interest in science and technology occupations has more to do with the perceived values and images of science and technology and careers in those ields than with lack of interest in general to science and technology. Scientists and engineers are no longer such strong symbols of social and economical progress in developed countries as they were before or as they are in unde- veloped countries nowadays. Furthermore, several students had stereotypical views of science and technology occupations, like ‘I stUDents’ MotIVAtIonAL oRIentAtIons AnD CAReeR CHoICe In sCIenCe AnD teCHnoLoGY: A CoMPARAtIVe InVestIGAtIon In FInLAnD AnD LAtVIA Abstract. This paper examines lower secondary school students’ motivational orientations on the characteristics of science and technology occupations. The survey data of 9th grade students were collected in spring 2003, in Finland from 75 schools (3626 students) and in Latvia from 39 schools (1065 students). An explora- tory factor analysis was used to describe the students’ orientations towards the characteristics of or activities typical to oc- cupations. The multi-group conirmatory factor analysis was used for the simultane- ous analysis of Finnish and Latvian data and the factorial invariance across the two separate data was conirmed. The factors were named: Personally meaningful, Leadership, Craft, Nature, Innovation, and Social orientation. Characteristics related especially to Personally meaningful orien- tation, and also to Innovation and Social orientations appeared most important for choice of future occupations. Boys, on the average, were much more oriented towards conventional technology than girls, whereas girls had much stronger Personally meaningful, Nature, and Social orientations than boys relecting tradi- tional role models. Key words: career choice, motivation, sci- ence and technology education, compara- tive study. Jari Lavonen, Janis Gedrovics, Reijo Byman, Veijo Meisalo, Kalle Juuti, Anna Uitto © Jari Lavonen © Janis Gedrovics © Reijo Byman © Veijo Meisalo © Kalle Juuti © Anna Uitto Jari Lavonen¹, Janis Gedrovics², Reijo Byman¹, Veijo Meisalo¹, Kalle Juuti¹, Anna Uitto¹ ¹ University of Helsinki, Finland ² Riga Teacher Training and Educational Management Academy, Latvia