THE ORIGINS OF CAREER CHOICES OF STUDENTS IN LOWER EDUCATIONAL TRACKS

2023-06-12

2023-07-31

1) Students track aspiration (continue school vs. vocational training vs. start working without further education)
2) Students aspired (occupational) fields (Field 1: construction, surveying, metal construction, mechanical engineering, production, manufacturing, agriculture, transport, or logistics. Field 2: Services, health, social services, or education. Field 3: Business, administration, art, culture, design, or media. Field 4: Science, IT, Computer, Electrical or Engineering)

And especially derived from this (for the 50% with a confidential question about rating tracks first):
3) Adjustments in the aspired educational track between the first (confidential) elicitation of aspirations and the second elicitation of aspirations (and whether this adjustment varies across experimental conditions of the instructions for the treated section). One special focus in addition is given here to downward adjustments in aspired tracks.

3) The variable “consistency_tracks” will take the value 1 if a student gave the highest rating to the track he or she says they would prefer to pursue, and 0 otherwise.

b) The variable “track_downward_adjustment” will take the value 1 in the following two cases: first, if a student gives the highest rating to continuing school but then states they would like to do vocational training or start working without further education. Second, if a student gives the highest rating to pursuing vocational training but then states they would like to start working without further education. In all other cases, this outcome variable will take the value of 0.

A) Perceived disagreement about preferred educational tracks with parents
B) Perceived disagreement about preferred occupational fields with parents

A) Takes the value one if preferred track of the student is different from the perceived preferred track of at least one parent (or separately for mother/father)
B) Takes the value one if preferred field of the student is different from the perceived preferred field of at least one parent (or separately for mother/father)

Please see after study is over.

The goal of the experiment is to identify the role of external pressure from parents and peers in influencing students’ planned track and field choices. We use a similar experimental approach as the one used by Müller (2021) to identify parents’ pressure on German high-school students to attend university.

In the third section of the questionnaire, students are asked about their plans for the time after 10th grade (at Realschulen) or 9th grade (at Mittelschulen): They are instructed to think more carefully about their plans after they finish secondary school and (depending on the treatment) to show their plans to and discuss them with their parents and peers. For this purpose, they are given a QR code which will allow them to access their answers about their plans given in the questionnaire. To analyze how having to discuss one's stated plans with parents or peers changes students' answers, we experimentally vary the type of instructions across three treatments at the individual level.

More specifically, students are asked to show their answers about their plans to their parents (treatment 1), to 2-3 classmates (treatment 2) and to talk to them about their plans for after secondary school. In addition, we also have a control group (treatment 3) in which students are not asked to show their plan to someone, but just to look at their answers at home and to think again about what they want to do after secondary school.

Given our design, we can use the experimental between-subject variation in instructions to analyze how the different instructions affect the share of students aspiring to a certain track or to a certain occupational field (as well as for sub-groups of students).

Given our design, we also have one within-subject element left. 50% of student state their career plans/aspirations twice in the survey at school: once in confidentiality at the beginning of the survey (in the form of a rating question) and once in section 3 after the differing experimental instructions. For those in treatments 1 or 2, this means that when they get to state their plans for the second time, they will do so under the assumption that they will have to share their plans with their parents or 2-3 classmates. By comparing the likelihood of students revising their answers (before ultimately sharing them) across treatments and the direction towards which they change their answers, we can test if and how perceived external pressure from parents or peers influences students' planned track choices.

Randomization done by random assignment of codes to students (via random ordering and distribution of envelopes with different codes)

Individual

No

Ca. 16 schools and 155 classes

Ca. 2,000 - 3,200 pupils

Ca. 1/3 for each treatment