STEM Careers Barometer

18 Oct STEM Careers Barometer

Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW)
2014

The STEM Careers Barometer is a Swiss study investigating several questions based on the sister study by the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech). Its main objectives are to determine people’s motives for choosing or rejecting studies or a career in the STEM subjects, to gain insights into how students and those employed in STEM areas perceive their study routine or career progression, and to examine whether interest in studying STEM subjects at school has changed over the years. Any divergences from the results of the acatech study Career Barometer for Science and Engineering are also of interest. For this reason the concept and methods used in this study closely followed those of the acatech study. In the STEM Careers Barometer, three groups of people were surveyed in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland in summer 2012 by means of questionnaires. These groups were: school pupils at secondary stages I and II (N = 3,507), students of STEM disciplines, and also for comparison of economic sciences (N = 1,598), and people in employment, again predominantly in STEM areas (N = 945). Generally it can be stated that the results of the Swiss survey align with those of the German study in many areas.