Supporting people from all backgrounds to understand and aspire to tech careers is an important aim of The Hg Foundation as we work to widen access to opportunities in the sector.

However, there has been a lack of robust, validated tools to measure young people’s knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours related to a career in tech – which makes it difficult to know the progress we and our non profit partners are making  

To address this gap the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) has developed and validated a Tech Career Scale – a new survey designed for use with secondary-aged students. The technical report available below describes the development and testing process to produce the measure, including a large-scale validation with over 2,000 students in England.

Alongside the technical report, we have produced a practical guidance document to support our partners and others in the sector to use the survey confidently and consistently. The Foundation is making the survey free to use for others in the sector – including projects overseas, where the tool can be used with some adaptation.

The survey has already been successfully used with ~19,000 Year 8 students in schools in England, as part of the baseline survey for the Randomised Controlled Trial of Future for All’s new IntoTech Programme, targeted at students aged 12-16. The RCT will test the impact of a blend of inspirational talks, insight days, work experience and access to mentoring on the Tech Career Scale.

By making this validated survey tool freely available, we aim to strengthen evaluation practice across our network and the wider sector – ultimately meaning we know more about how best to make a difference.