2. Page i
Abstract
With a predicted three hundred percent increase in information technology (IT) jobs
forecast by 2010, and with a declining number of students enrolling in IT tertiary
courses, this research set out to explore why final year secondary students were not
choosing IT courses and careers. Having researched the literature to ascertain how
students make career decisions and the perceptions and misconceptions held about IT
careers and courses, a focus group and two written surveys were conducted which
resulted in the views of 220 students being gathered.
Few students had studied an IT based subject at either Year 12 or Year 13 and even
fewer were considering pursing it as a career. The majority of students had not
studied IT because they were not interested in either the subject or the course content,
or thought they had all of the skills they needed. However, many stated they would
be interested in specific courses if they were available which advanced their basic
skills or introduced them to programming, design, or technical skills, suggesting they
do have an interest in IT. This may suggest it is the content of the current curriculum
rather than their lack of interest in IT which may be influencing their lack of desire to
pursue IT careers. Many students see IT as a tool which they could use in other areas
rather than as a profession in itself. While many students lacked knowledge of the IT
industry and found it difficult to describe what IT was and the type of jobs available,
they were aware of their lack of knowledge. Students identified the traditional
stereotypes of people in the IT industry; for example, they described an IT
professional as a bright, brainy or smart geek or nerd, who was creative and quiet, and
sat at a computer all day playing games.
This report suggests that information about the range of IT careers, and the tasks and
skills required by IT professionals, needs to be presented to students in an interesting
way to demonstrate that IT is more than just a tool and can provide a stimulating and
interesting career.
3. Page ii
Acknowledgements
This is the first research project I have tackled and as such it has been a journey in
itself. I could not have done it without the help, advice, and guidance of my
supervisor, Clare Atkins. There never seemed to be a problem, just an opportunity to
learn something new about the project, the research process, or myself.
Research can be a lonely endeavour and therefore the opportunities to discuss what is
happening and the frustrations being felt is important. Thank you Sally MacDonald
and Kirsty Holmes for listening and offering your insights, they were very much
appreciated.
It is hard to proofread your own work because you come to know it too well, so thank
you Vivianne Mail for proofreading this for me. I really appreciated it.
And finally, thank you to the schools and students who participated in this research.
Your input was invaluable and without you, there would have been no report.
4. Page iii
Table of Contents
1 Introduction........................................................................................................ 1
2 Background........................................................................................................ 1
3 Research Design............................................................................................... 13
4 Actual Research Description ............................................................................ 16
5 Research Results .............................................................................................. 19
6 Results Analysis............................................................................................... 36
7 Implications ..................................................................................................... 42
8 Future Work..................................................................................................... 43
9 Conclusion....................................................................................................... 44
10 References........................................................................................................ 46
11 Appendices ...................................................................................................... 51
Appendix A: Letter to Principal .......................................................................... 51
Appendix B: Letter to Year 13 Dean................................................................... 53
Appendix C: Ethical Approval............................................................................ 54
Appendix D: Student Consent............................................................................. 55
Appendix E: Focus Group Questions .................................................................. 57
Appendix F: First Survey.................................................................................... 60
Appendix G: Second Survey............................................................................... 63
Appendix H: STAR Funding Criteria.................................................................. 67
Appendix I: Types of Short Courses Desired....................................................... 68
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Table 1 Monthly IT Job Vacancies 2006.................................................................... 4
Table 2 Relationship between Original Themes and Sub Themes ........................... 20
List of Figures
Figure 1 Factors affecting career choice.................................................................. 25
Figure 2 School Year seriously started considering career ...................................... 25
Figure 3 IT job awareness....................................................................................... 26
Figure 4 Description of people interested in IT....................................................... 27
Figure 5 Source of ideas about IT people................................................................ 27
Figure 6 Reasons why Y12 and Y13 students studied IT......................................... 28
Figure 7 Reasons why Y12 and Y13 students didn't study IT.................................. 28
Figure 8 Had students considered IT as a career?.................................................... 29
Figure 9 Description of IT ...................................................................................... 30
Figure 10 IT job awareness..................................................................................... 31
Figure 11 Description of people interested in IT ..................................................... 32
Figure 12 Source of ideas about IT people.............................................................. 32
Figure 13 Reasons why Y12 and Y13 students studied IT....................................... 33
Figure 14 Reasons why Y12 and Y13 students didn't study IT................................ 33
Figure 15 Type of course wanted............................................................................ 34
Figure 16 Information required to consider an IT career ......................................... 35
5. Page 1
1 Introduction
It is generally recognised that there is a looming shortage of information technology
(IT) specialists world wide with baby boomers beginning to retire, an upswing in
economies, and the recognition of the part IT will play in future economic growth.
Coupled with this, there are an insufficient number of students graduating from
tertiary institutions with the skills to pursue IT as a career.
However, IT covers such a wide area that there are potentially careers for anyone;
from the practical skills of a technician or network installer, through the creative skills
of the graphical, multimedia and web designers, to the logical skills of the
programmer, database and web designers, and finally to the business skills of the
systems designers and analysts. Nevertheless, “the New Zealand ICT industry is at
the point of crisis over the number of new recruits coming into the industry…”
(Brislen, 2006).
The researcher is a registered secondary teacher whose role has included the provision
of career advice to students. This role assisted students plan their future directions by
looking at their interests and skills. While some of the students were interested in IT,
they were reluctant to enrol in tertiary courses in this area or to explore it as a career
option. The extent of this reluctance did not become evident until enrolling full time
in an IT course herself and noticing the small class sizes. Listening to comments
made by the tutors and the other students it became clear that there were low numbers
of students enrolling in the various IT courses. Many of these students appeared to
either dropout during their first year or chose to exit at the end of that year and not
continue to complete the full qualification. These observations have led to an interest
in why students are not choosing IT careers.
Building on previous work addressing the reasons for this situation (Clear & Bidois,
2005; Howard, 2005), this research attempts to discover and explore the perceptions
and misconceptions of final year secondary school students towards IT as a tertiary
study or career choice by surveying groups of Year 13 students.
2 Background
The UNESCO Information and Communications Technology (ICT) curricula for
secondary schools sees ICT as a basic building block of modern society (vanWeert,
T., Buettner, Y., Fulford, C., Kendall, M., Duchateau, C., Hogenbirk, P., et al., 2000).
ICT underpins the success of modern businesses and provides governments with cost
effective public service systems. A sufficient number of professionals need to be
educated with a sound ICT background which is independent of specific platforms or
software environments to enable a country to benefit from technological
developments (vanWeert, T., et al., 2000).
The Digital Strategy (NZ Government) is New Zealand’s approach to creating our
digital future. It proposes to use the power of ICT in pursuit of a Knowledge Society.
For this to happen, the ability to computerise and access information via a networked
environment is needed. The Digital Strategy identifies three key interlinked concepts
of connection (the means), confidence (the skills), and content (the reason to make it
happen) to promote innovation, increased productivity and the enrichment in the
6. Page 2
quality of our lives. While the Digital Strategy is about enabling information to be
accessed in an efficient manner, it also recognises the need for skilled professionals to
create, store and maintain both the information and the network to access it (NZ
Government).
The New Zealand IT industry has estimated it will need an extra 35,000 skilled
workers over the next 10 years (PullarStrecker, 2006). Growth in employment in the
industry has significantly exceeded supply since 2001 with an average of 3,500 new
jobs being created annually over this time. While there were more than 1,800 IT
graduates in 2003 (Department of Labour, 2005), there has been a 30% decline in ICT
enrolments across the Institute of Technology and Polytechnic sector between 2003
and 2006 and a 50% decline in ICT enrolments at four universities (Otago, Auckland,
Canterbury and Victoria) in 2006 compared to 2002 (Hedquist, 2006b).
To reduce this deficit, the Digital Strategy proposes to incorporate digital literacy as
part of education at all levels and in different kinds of training. However, there is
currently a poor alignment between tertiary and secondary education, government,
and industry which may partially explain the shortage of students pursuing IT careers
(Clear & Bidois, 2005).
2.1 Definition of Information Technology
There are many different definitions of IT and ICT. Each piece of literature seems to
have its own slightly different interpretation. However, they seem to encompass the
idea of creating, storing, manipulating and transmitting information. For example, the
Oxford English Dictionary defines information technology “as the branch of
technology concerned with the dissemination, processing, and storage of information,
esp. by means of computers” (Oxford English Dictionary). As the intention of this
research is to explore why New Zealand Year 13 students are not pursuing IT careers,
the following brief survey of definitions will be restricted to New Zealand literature.
The Digital Strategy (NZ Government) uses the term ICT as including
electronic informationprocessing technologies such as computers and the
Internet, as well as fixedline telecommunications, mobile phones and other
wireless communications, networks, broadband, and various specialised
application devices ranging from barcode scanners and Braille readers to global
positioning systems (GPS).
However, it also recognises that for New Zealand to become a “true Knowledge
Society”, it needs to focus on those activities which “create, collect, manage, process,
store, move, or access information via a networked environment” (NZ Government).
This is reflected in the definition of ICT in the New Zealand technology curriculum as
including “systems that enable the collection, structuring, manipulation, retrieval, and
communication of information in various forms” (Ministry of Education, (b), p.12).
The Fluency in Information Technology (FITNZ) metaframework report (Clear &
Bidois, 2005) doesn’t attempt to define either IT or ICT but uses these terms, along
with computing, interchangeably because of the difficulty in categorising the
computing discipline. Likewise, in this research, the terms IT and ICT will also be
used interchangeably and will be defined as involving anything to do with the
7. Page 3
creation, use, storage and movement of data involving computers. This definition is
in line with that used by The Digital Strategy and The New Zealand Technology
Curriculum.
2.2 The Information Technology Skill Shortage
The skill shortages in the IT industry have been acknowledged by the Hon David
Cunliffe (Minister for Information Technology and Minister of Communications) in
an address to the New Zealand Computer Society:
New Zealand is also beginning to face skill shortages for some ICT related
careers and this is only going to get worse if we don’t do something about it.
Last year's statistics indicated an 84% increase in advertised ICT jobs – great you
say.
But many ICT positions remain a struggle to recruit for. This is made worse by
the fact that New Zealand saw a disappointing 20% drop in the number of
students graduating with ICT degrees, including an increasing drop out rate in
the first year of study.
These and future skills shortages need addressing now. Hightechnology careers
need to be promoted better to young people. (Cunliffe, 2005)
The Department of Labour classifies an occupation as having a shortage if less than
80% of vacancies are filled within eight weeks. In 2004, the IT industry had a fill rate
of only 53% indicating a shortage of skilled workers (Department of Labour, 2005).
This was further evidenced by there only being 1.8 suitable applicants per vacancy,
down from 3.8 in 2003. The research further found that employment had grown from
approximately 9,000 jobs at the beginning of 2001 to approximately 23,000 in early
2005 which equates to about 3,500 new jobs being created each year. Finally, their
report highlighted the impact the Growth and Innovative Framework (GIF) initiative
will have on the ICT industry, with it becoming one of three sectors leading New
Zealand’s future economic growth (Department of Labour, 2005). More recently it
has been estimated that, by 2010, 66,000 employees will be required compared to the
approximate 22,000 currently employed; however, there will only be an estimated
3,500 graduates over the next three years to meet this increase (NZGDA report on
computer science careers, as cited in Brislen, 2006).
There are two options for alleviating this problem. One is to increase the supply of
suitably qualified graduates which requires an increase in appropriate student
enrolments. The other option is to increase the supply of suitably qualified
immigrants. This is being encouraged by the inclusion of IT on the long term skills
shortage list for immigration purposes (Immigration New Zealand, 2006). However,
there is not an international surplus of IT professionals which means New Zealand
cannot necessarily rely on immigration to meet its shortages.
Internationally, Australia, United States of America (USA), and Europe are all
forecasting IT job growth along with drops in students enrolling in IT courses. Unless
these countries are able to meet their growth internally, the international employment
situation will get tighter.
8. Page 4
Australia is forecasting that IT will be one of five occupational groups with the
highest employment growth rate prospects (Department of Labour, 2005). IT job
vacancies were 22.3% higher in August 2006 compared to August 2005 (Mills, 2006)
and IT tertiary enrolments have seen a decline of nearly 14% in 2005 from the
previous year (Morton, 2006).
The USA is predicting a 5.5% per annum growth between 2004 and 2010 compared
to 2.3% annual growth for all professional occupations and 1.4% increase across all
occupations (Department of Labour, 2005). They are beginning to suffer IT shortages
with both a drop in enrolments in IT courses, and the first wave of baby boomers
retiring. Since 2004, undergraduate enrolments in computer science programmes
have dropped 7% in the previous two years, and the number of students studying
computer science majors are 39% less in 2004 compared to 2001 (Paul, 2005).
Europe is likely to face a shortage of up to 500,000 people with advanced network
skills by 2008 while Eastern Europe and nonEuropean Union states will have a
shortage of more than 20% of people with networking skills (Goodwin, 2005a). The
United Kingdom (UK), Germany and France have also reported a drop in IT student
numbers of 5% to 20% between 2001 and 2005 (Goodwin, 2005b). In the UK, it has
been estimated the IT industry needs up to 179,000 new entrants to replace those
leaving the industry, but only 8,800 new graduates entered the industry in 2002, with
IT student numbers continuing to decline (Maija, 2005). A different source has stated
the UK needs an estimated 150,000 extra employees each year but only 20,000
students are graduating from UK universities annually (NZDGA report on computer
science careers, as cited in Brislen, 2006). These both highlight the IT skills gap the
UK is facing.
In New Zealand, the Department of Labour separately monitors the number of IT
vacancies advertised. Table 1, derived from the Job Vacancy Monitor published on
the Department of Labour website, shows the increase in the number of jobs
advertised when compared to the same month in the previous year. The largest
recorded number of vacancies occurred in September 2006.
Table 1 Monthly IT Job Vacancies 2006
Month
2006
Number
of
vacancies
Percentage increase
compared to same
month in 2005
February 976 14
March 1121 46
April 919 20
May 1189 25
June 1095 10
July 1151 18
August 1157 11
September 1213 21
First year enrolments in computer science are at the lowest level for 15 years and this
shortage may continue for at least another five years (Bell, 2004). As previously
mentioned, enrolments with the Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics have
9. Page 5
dropped 30% since 2003 while enrolments at some universities have halved since
2002 (Hedquist, 2006b). There was also a drop of 20% in the number of students
graduating with ICT degrees in 2004 (PullarStrecker, 2005) and this trend is
continuing. There has been a further drop in enrolments in IT degrees from 3,703 full
time equivalent students in 2004 to 3,162 students in 2005, along with a drop from
2,486 level 5 – 7 diploma students in 2004 to 1,958 in 2005 (Ministry of Education,
2006a), representing decreases of 15% and 21% respectively. More recently, it has
been estimated that the number of graduates expected in 2008 will be half the number
that graduated in 2004 (Brislen, 2006). This article also draws attention to the flow
on effect with the decrease in students enrolling in IT courses resulting in the
reduction in the number of staff teaching ICT in universities and polytechnics. It
further states this will affect the ability of the institutions to cope with any increase in
student numbers in the future.
2.3 Perceptions of Information Technology Careers
The projections of the previous section suggest that career prospects for IT graduates
will be good in the future, and yet it is clear that secondary students are not choosing
either tertiary courses or careers in this area. Common themes in the literature
associated with students’ lack of interest in IT careers are that they are boring, for
geeks and nerds, lack job opportunities, and there is a general lack of knowledge
about careers in this area.
It was previously thought students made career decisions in Years 11 and 12, but
Leach and Zepke (2005) found students start making career choices earlier than this.
Students generally work through three phases in their decision making process:
predisposition, search, and choice. The choice of career tends to start at the search
phase which involves gaining information from a variety of sources including taster
courses and brochures. The choices being researched during this phase are generally
based on career aspirations, interest in a particular field of study, and academic
achievement. The choice phase involves following up on a specific program related to
the choices made during the search phase (Leach & Zepke, 2005). This suggests, for
a student to choose a career, they need to already have an interest in this area and this
interest will be stimulated by how they perceive the related industry through their life
experiences. These experiences will come from both school and out of school
sources.
In the USA, students have a perception that there are a lack of jobs in the IT industry
because they are moving offshore (Anthes, 2006) and as a flow on from the dotcom
crash and post Y2K dip. (Bell, 2004; Mitchell, 2006). Students have also described
the career as suited to geeks or nerds and that the jobs are boring (Kamal, 2005).
Another issue raised in this article is the lack of knowledge about IT careers in
general. In contrast, in the UK teenagers see the IT industry as one of their top
choices despite a lack of information on the types of roles available to new entrants to
the industry (Huber, 2004).
New Zealand parents and students have similar perceptions. Students perceive IT
careers as geeky and boring and the tasks as mundane and computer based, while
parents are concerned about job stability following the dotcom collapse in 2000
(Hendery, 2006) despite this being no bigger than other fluctuations (Bell, 2006).
10. Page 6
Currently, teachers and parents seem to be uninterested and actively opposed to
students’ interest in IT (Brislen, 2006). The industry also has a low profile which
needs to be rectified along with better information being made available to career
advisers (Saunders & Dalziel, 2003) to increase student awareness of the career
opportunities available and that these offer more than “stereotypical geeks in
cubicles” careers (Brislen, 2006).
The Careers Service describes the outlook for the computer and technical industry in
New Zealand as very good because of its significance to New Zealand’s economy
(Career Services, 2003). They estimated that in 2001, 88% of businesses had
incorporated IT into their daily operations suggesting it has become an integral part of
our everyday lives.
College students in the USA see IT careers as having low human interactions and
focussing on technical skills, where in reality interpersonal skills are just as important.
This may suggest the profession needs a new image highlighting the problem solving,
creative, intelligent, selfmotivated, and interpersonal aspects of the jobs (Fox, Hindi,
& Remington, 2001). The New Zealand Careers Service advises that, while technical
skills are still crucial, communication skills have become increasingly important
because IT workers need to deal with clients and their employees (Career Services,
2003).
The negative perceptions students have of the IT industry are reinforced in the media
with the IT person often portrayed as the bad guy, sidekick, or weirdo in many TV
programs and advertising (Menagh, 1998). In America, there is a move to make
computer science more attractive to students. Improved public relations advising
what computing careers are about, the importance of team work and communication
skills, and the revamping of high school curricula to focus more on problem solving
and less on programming have been suggested (Anthes, 2006). Suggestions have
even been made to encourage Hollywood to show IT as an exciting field (Information
technology's "nerdy image" turns some teens off. 2000). For example, “the year LA
Law came out, law school applications went up 25%” (Menagh, 1998). The
promotion of ICT courses in schools is seen as another method of increasing students’
interest in IT careers by showing them what is possible (Hedquist, 2006a).
2.4 Perceptions of Information Technology Courses
The Beyond Schools research (Boyd, Chalmers, & Kumekawa, 2001) found that 55%
of students surveyed had selected their school subjects based on their postschooling
plans even though they did not always see a relationship between the subject and their
future options. It also found that only 26% of students whose intention was to leave
school were doing exactly what they thought they would be doing a year later, while
14% of the students had changed their plans completely.
There has been a reported dropout rate of up to 40% of first year IT degree students
(PullarStrecker, 2005). Speculation about the reasons for this high dropout rate are
the lack of a curriculum from Year 11 onwards and a lack of knowledge about tertiary
courses which results in students being unaware of what to expect if they choose to
study computing at a tertiary level. School students often perceive computing as
11. Page 7
involving specific applications rather than the importance of solving business
problems (Bell, 2006).
2.4.1 Secondary school courses
At 1 March 2005 there were 38,238 equivalent full time Year 13 students on
secondary school rolls (Ministry of Education, (a)). Of these students, 4,868 were
taking computer studies (Education Counts). This represents nearly 13% of Year 13
students and puts it towards the bottom of the top 14 subject choices and at a similar
level to those taking classics, economics and religious education. For these students,
the majority of assessment was by unit standards (New Zealand Qualifications
Authority, 2006c). The most popular level 3 unit standards in 2005 related to the use
of spreadsheets, databases and desktop publishing, or the creation of images and
websites, with over 1,500 Year 13 students gaining credits in each of these areas
(New Zealand Qualifications Authority, 2006c). In contrast, the three most popular
level 3 ICTbased achievement standards had between five and six hundred results
recorded for each. These results indicate that IT based subjects tend to be assessed by
unit standards even though there have been four technology achievement standards
related specifically to ICT available. This may partly be because, for university
entrance purposes, only unit standards from the generic computing domain are an
approved subject (New Zealand Qualifications Authority, 2006a). Interestingly, two
of the specific ICT achievement standards have expired, leaving only generic
technology achievement standards in their place (New Zealand Qualifications
Authority, 2006b).
The low numbers of secondary students specialising in technology based subjects is
possibly due to the syllabus not encouraging them to study them, along with the lack
of specialised teachers to teach them (Saunders & Dalziel, 2003). This is resulting in
inconsistent courses being taught in secondary schools containing whatever skills the
teachers have (Schwarz, 2006). IT teachers are aware of their own skill shortages.
While only a third of teachers responding to a survey felt they were qualified to teach
IT subjects, half of them developed their teaching content from their own experience
or knowledge while only 31% developed them from curriculum documents (Howard,
2005). A more recent survey of technology teachers found that “inappropriately
qualified teachers are being required to teach technology” because “technology
teachers, in whichever area they are needed, are becoming increasingly difficult to
replace” (Post Primary Teacher Association, 2006). It further states that if nothing is
done to recruit trained and qualified staff, “technology as a subject will die of natural
causes”. A recent article builds on this theme with a teacher quoted as stating “ICT is
part of the fabric of our society … You wouldn’t [accept] a school that didn’t offer
mathematics teachers, [so] why would you think that you can afford to ignore having
specialist ICT courses?” (Hedquist, 2006a).
Research into the impact of NCEA on student motivation (Meyer, McClure, Walkey,
McKenzie, & Weir, 2006) found a student’s goals affected the level of achievement
they obtained. Where students chose subjects based on their interests or career
aspirations, those subjects tended to be assessed by achievement standards allowing
the student to gain the higher grades of merit or excellence. Those students who chose
subjects based on factors unrelated to interests or career aspirations tended to choose
subjects which were assessed by unit standards which do not allow merit or
12. Page 8
excellence grades to be obtained. Students also felt that external exams were
important as evidence of quality and consistency between different schools (Meyer et
al., 2006). Unit standards are at a disadvantage because they are all internally
assessed compared to achievement standards where at least half of the standards in
each subject are externally assessed. This may suggest that students select subjects, at
least at a subconscious level, based on assessment method rather than on subject
content.
A predominant theme from Howard’s research (Howard, 2005) was the lack of a
specific IT curriculum combined with the lack of achievement standards for assessing
the subject for NCEA levels 1 to 3 was resulting in students not seeing IT as an
academic subject. Comments made by principals and staff included:
There are no achievement standards for computing, only unit standards so this
puts students off taking computing at senior level and for further study at tertiary
level. (p. 26)
The creation of appropriate achievement standards will be an essential part of
developing this pathway. Teachers do not feel they can support their academic
students in following a course of study they consider to be inferior, due to a lack
of a recognised academic pathway. (p. 44)
This theme is also evident in the FITNZ metaframework research (Clear & Bidois,
2005) which concluded that the low status computing currently has in high schools
was due to the confusion of the skills involved in the subject, lack of knowledge about
the scope of computing, and the positioning of IT under the technology curriculum
umbrella, when historically technology has been recognised as a nonacademic
subject. This was further emphasised in the Project Overview to the FITNZ project
by Speight (2005, as cited in (Gasson & Baldwin, 2006)
there is currently no year 1113 ICT Curriculum … New Zealand does not
support an ITO for Information Technology or Telecommunications. Secondary
and tertiary ICT educators and the ICT industry have no framework for
consultation and the lack of understanding and communication around ICT as an
educational or career option is leading to misperceptions by both community and
industry.
The lack of an ICT curriculum for Year 11 – 13 students is also seen as an issue by
the Post Primary Teacher Association (2005) who have advised the Government of
“the need for ICT to be developed as a stand alone curriculum at years 1113 (and not
be subsumed in technology)” (p. 10). However, not everyone sees the importance of
a specialist ICT curriculum, “Gone are the days when IT was a specific lesson about
computers; now technology comes in every part of school” (Hann, 2006).
The UNESCO curriculum for schools (vanWeert, T., et al., 2000) outlines four
distinct categories of the role of ICT in the curriculum. The first three categories build
on the skills and techniques of the previous ones starting with ICT literacy and
progressing to application within individual subject areas, and finally with integration
across the curriculum. These three categories develop ICT as a tool with the aim of
using ICT cross curricula by merging subject areas to reflect real life applications.
The fourth category, ICT specialisation, relates to ICT as a profession and provides a
means for becoming a specialist. Curriculum at this level is concerned with ICT as
13. Page 9
vocational or professional education rather than general education (vanWeert, T., et
al., 2000).
The draft curriculum appears to place ICT firmly within the integration across the
curriculum category of the UNESCO curriculum. On planning for the development
of key competencies it states that
Information and communication technology (ICT) gives students access to a vast
range of information and reallife contexts that have meaning for them and that
can be used as a basis for learning experiences. Schools need to consider how
they can use the opportunities offered by ICT as means for developing their
students’ competencies (Ministry of Education, 2006b, p.29).
The draft curriculum acknowledges the importance of providing students with a
“range of coherent transitions and pathways to further learning” (Ministry of
Education, 2006b, p. 9). It has been drafted to allow for the
increasing levels of specialisation as students enter their senior school years and
begin thinking seriously about where their learning pathways might take them.
Schools need to recognise and cater for the diverse abilities and aspirations of
their senior students and enable them to keep open a range of options for future
study and work (Ministry of Education, 2006b, p. 33).
Many of today’s generation are growing up with computers as part of their everyday
life. They see these as a tool for everyday use rather than as a trade (Menagh, 1998).
The current technology curriculum has ICT as one of eight technological areas
(Ministry of Education, (b)) and this status appears to be further reduced in the new
draft curriculum which refers only to communications as one of the areas in which
students should obtain technological literacy (Ministry of Education, 2006b). Unlike
the other seven learning areas which provide specific achievement objectives for each
of the strands, both the current and draft curricula only provide generic achievement
objectives rather than context specific ones, making it difficult to determine the type
of learning experiences anticipated.
While the draft curriculum only outlines the national direction for learning, individual
schools are given the responsibility of designing their own curriculum to meet the
needs and interests of their students and community (Ministry of Education, 2006b,
p.26). This leaves the development of a specialist ICT curriculum in the hands of
individual schools who are struggling to appoint suitably qualified teachers in this
area.
2.4.2 STAR courses
STAR (Secondary Tertiary Alignment Resource) funding is additional money made
available to schools to allow senior secondary students (Year 11 13) the opportunity
to study programmes in nonconventional subjects (Ministry of Education, 2005,
p.16). Its objectives are to assist with the transition of students into the workplace,
provide students with tertiarytype courses which meet their needs, and to allow
students to explore possible career pathways. Appendix H contains a fuller
explanation of STAR funding criteria and objectives. IT is considered a conventional
subject and therefore STAR funding cannot be used to provide courses at a level
14. Page 10
equivalent to other Year 11 to 13 subjects, it can only be used for courses “at a level
beyond that of a typical Year 13 course that has by convention been provided in the
senior secondary school” (Ministry of Education, 2005). These higher level courses
may not be suitable for many students.
A review of STAR (Vaughan & Kenneally, 2003) found that students selecting STAR
courses did so for a number of reasons. Some used them to learn about different
career and tertiary study options, while many saw them as an opportunity to get
practical, handson experiences, and to experience new and different challenges from
traditional school subject options. One of the recommendations from this review was
that
Taster courses serve an important purpose. That students may not necessarily go
on to careers or further study directly related to what they “tasted” through
STAR courses is not a failure of STAR. Tasters could even be made more widely
available to senior students (Vaughan & Kenneally, 2003, p. xvi).
Likewise, the Innovative Pathways research (Boyd & McDowall, 2003) found
students who attended tertiary taster, block, or foundation courses had more
information available to them to make more informed decisions on the suitability of
career and course choices. This does not mean that students will necessarily carry on
with courses or careers in these areas, just that they know more about them. Leach
and Zepke (2005) found that an important aspect of the searching stage of student
decision making is the information sharing between students, families, schools and
tertiary providers. This allows students to find out about courses and careers from
people and taster courses rather than publications.
Students’ awareness of courses being offered by tertiary institutions appears to be
limited. One small study (McCarthy, 2002) found that, at the start of two specialist IT
classes being run as STAR courses, most of the Year 13 students were unaware of the
programmes and qualifications offered by the local Institute of Technology. By the
end of the year, a survey of these students found that not only had their awareness of
the programmes and qualifications been raised, but that a number of them were
considering enrolling in computing courses at that Institute the following year. A
follow up of the actual enrolments in the next year showed that just under half of the
group had enrolled in a computing course (McCarthy, 2002).
A follow up study three years later (McCarthy, 2004) found, of the 159 students who
had completed the secondary level course in the three years the program had been
running, just under half had enrolled in tertiary courses at the local Institute of
Technology of which thirty percent were computing courses. This compares to a total
of only three enrolments over the previous five years prior to the course being offered
(McCarthy, 2002). Of the 77 students enrolling, 96% had either successfully
completed their course, or were well on the way to successfully completing it
(McCarthy, 2004) suggesting that taster courses both help students make more
informed decisions and better prepare them for tertiary study.
2.4.3 Tertiary courses
The Beyond Schools’ research (Boyd et al., 2001) found 82% of students planned to
study either fulltime or parttime when they left school. Of these students, 59% of
15. Page 11
the students planned to attend university and 15% polytechnic. The three most
popular areas of intended study were commerce (14%), arts and social sciences
(12%), and tourism and hospitality (11%). Only 5% of students were intending to
study computing, IT, mathematics or statistics.
While subject area interest affects both the choice of institution and the type of
institution chosen for tertiary study, full information on costs and financial support is
also important to allow students to make effective decisions (Leach & Zepke, 2005).
McLaughlin (2003) expands on this with the types of tertiary education available,
preparation needed, costs, government assistance available, and opportunities for
graduates as important information for informed decision making.
The content of tertiary IT courses needs to reflect the requirements of the industry and
produce work ready graduates. In the USA, employers are concerned that graduates
are not being produced with the technical skills which will blend in with their
business goals (Kamal, 2005). In the UK, there has been a move to combine technical
and business skills with work placements into a national business and IT degree to
produce work ready students (Maija, 2005).
Research carried out by Chan (Chan & Paynter, 2006) revealed businesses wanted to
employ work ready graduates requiring minimal training, but found many applicants
lacked communication and basic business skills. This research further found
employers felt courses lacked examples of real world applications to balance the
theoretical knowledge gained. In New Zealand, university computer science courses
tend to be more theoretical in nature, while IT and IS (information systems) courses
developed by the Institutes of Technologies tend to provide a blend of practical and
theoretical knowledge. Students interested in the natural sciences and maths have
pathways into university computer science courses, but there does not appear to be an
equivalent pathway into the Institute of Technology IT and IS courses.
2.5 Summary
The Department of Labour classifies New Zealand as having an IT skills shortage.
Internationally, the USA, UK, Europe, and Australia are experiencing rapid growth in
IT job vacancies and predicting a shortage of skilled staff as the baby boom
generation enters retirement. Coupled with this, both in New Zealand and
internationally, there have been significant drops in students enrolling in IT tertiary
courses.
Students make career decisions based on a number of factors. These include what
they perceive the various careers entail, whether they are likely to enjoy them based
on their own interests and personalities, as well as the likely future job opportunities
available. A lack of suitable information about IT careers in general may be resulting
in students not having relevant information available to make informed decisions.
Many students still appear to have a stereotypical view of IT people as being geeks
with poor communication skills, sitting at a computer all day.
The preparedness of students commencing tertiary IT courses in New Zealand has
also been questioned. Up to forty percent of students have been reported as dropping
out of first year IT degree courses. This suggests students may be either not well
16. Page 12
prepared for first year study, or are unaware of what is required, resulting in
unsuitable choices being made about tertiary course options. Many students use
STAR courses to find out about careers and tertiary courses. Unfortunately, IT
courses at a level comparable to senior secondary courses are not eligible for STAR
funding because computing is considered a conventional subject. Without an ITO
(industry training organisation) taking responsibility for promoting the industry, this
leaves the secondary curriculum as the principle source of information about the skills
involved in the IT industry.
It appears that the lack of a national curriculum, teachers not suitably qualified to
teach the subject, and a tendency to concentrate on the tools of IT rather than the trade
of IT is resulting in students being unaware of what IT careers actually involve. The
inclusion of IT under the traditionally nonacademic technology curriculum area and
predominant use of unit standards for assessment may be reinforcing the perception of
IT as a nonacademic subject resulting in academic students not considering IT as a
career option.
2.6 Areas for exploration
The literature suggests four themes which may affect whether students choose to
study IT: general career choices, perceptions of IT careers, perceptions of IT tertiary
courses, and perceptions of IT secondary courses.
The theme involving careers in general investigates when students seriously
considered their career options and who and what influenced these. This may lead to
determining what age students should be targeted with information to enable them to
make an informed decision about IT careers.
The theme relating to perceptions of IT careers will consider what types of IT jobs the
students are aware of and what they think the future of these jobs will be. Information
on how students perceive the people involved in the industry will also be determined.
This includes what perceptions students have about the type of people who have IT
careers, the environment they work in, and the impact of the media on these
perceptions. This may lead to an understanding of how students see IT careers and
what misconceptions they may have which may provide an insight into why students
are not choosing to pursue IT careers.
The perceptions of IT tertiary courses theme will concentrate on the perceptions the
students have about tertiary courses in IT and the types of people who may be drawn
to study it. Costs and incentives will also be considered. This may lead to an
understanding of why students either choose not to enrol in IT courses or why there is
a high dropout rate. This may also link to student perceptions and misconceptions of
IT careers.
The theme of perceptions of IT secondary courses will consider how students decide
whether to study IT at school or not. Issues which will be explored will include the
impact of course content, assessment methods, and the availability of STAR courses.
This may lead to an understanding of how students perceive school IT courses, its
academic standing, and whether students see it as prominently teaching tools to be
used in other areas rather than as a profession.
17. Page 13
The above four themes have formed the basis for the investigative research in this
project.
3 Research Design
3.1 Literature Review: What Information is Available?
A search of electronic databases, library catalogues and New Zealand educational
sites (for example, Ministry of Education, NZ Council for Educational Research, and
New Zealand Qualifications Authority) will be undertaken to locate previous
research, publications, and articles related to the research goal. The objective will be
to locate information on the IT skills shortage, student decision making, and
perceptions of IT secondary curriculum, IT courses and IT careers. This information
can then be used as a basis for constructing a research instrument.
3.2 Approach: Quantitative or Qualitative?
Quantitative research relates to the testing of hypotheses by collecting data to which
mathematical models and theories can be applied to enable conclusions to be drawn
(Leedy & Ormrod, 2001). Data collected is either in numeric form, or is able to be
represented by numbers, and conclusions are generally stated using numbers and
statistics. This contrasts with qualitative research where data is collected from
observations and interviews and analysed using inductive reasoning. Conclusions are
reported using a narrative style. A quantitative approach is suitable if the researcher
believes there is an objective reality that can be measured and that the research
question is confirmatory or predictive in nature, while a qualitative approach is
suitable if the researcher believes there are multiple possible realities which can be
constructed by different individuals and the research question is exploratory or
interpretive in nature (Leedy & Ormrod, 2001).
While a quantitative approach to this research could have been used, it was decided it
was more relevant to discover the participants’ thoughts on the issues – the ‘why’
rather than the ‘what’. For this reason, a qualitative approach is to be used. This will
also allow a more flexible approach to be taken to gathering the data so that themes
which may present themselves can more easily be followed up. The result of this
approach is that a detailed research design can not be developed, but rather it will
emerge as the research progresses.
3.3 Data Collection: Interviews or Questionnaires?
Either interviews or questionnaires would be suitable methods to obtain the required
information. Questionnaires collect the required data where respondents write their
own answers, while interviews collect the required data from the verbal interactions
between two or more individuals. Interviews may be structured or unstructured, and
to individuals or groups of respondents. Structured interviews use predetermined
questions in the same order for each interview which increases the likelihood of
producing uniform and comparable data. Unstructured interviews use a guide to
control the direction of the interview, but questions are formulated during the
interview. This is useful for collecting indepth information, but comparability
between different individuals or groups may become difficult (Kumar, 1996).
18. Page 14
Kumar suggests the choice between interviews or questionnaires should be based on
details about the nature of the investigation, the geographical distribution of the study
population, and the type of study population. Questionnaires tend to be more suitable
where the respondents may be reluctant to discuss the issues with an interviewer or
when the study population is scattered over a wide area. In contrast, interviews are
often more suitable when the type of study population makes a questionnaire
impractical, for example due to age, literacy, or disability.
Interviews have been chosen as the primary method to obtain information about how
and why students choose to study IT based subjects. The difficulty in ascertaining the
actual questions to ask has led to the use of an unstructured approach. The advantage
of using this approach is the interviewer can follow leads provided by the students in
obtaining their views. An interview guide will be used to ensure general areas are
covered. The use of interviews instead of questionnaires will also avoid the issue of
students’ literacy skills. The questions will tend to be openended and the oral
collection of data should make it easier for students to express their thoughts. Also,
the interview method will allow more indepth probing of areas raised by the students
as warranted.
Focus groups are unstructured interviews where a group of participants discuss their
views on a topic. The rationale of this method is that the group process can help the
participants to explore and clarify their views (Kitzinger, 1995). It is useful for
examining what the participants think and both how and why they think the way they
do by taking advantage of the communication between the participants. Advantages
of this method include encouraging participation from those who don’t think they
have anything to contribute but who will engage in discussions within the group, and
avoiding the literacy issues. An ideal group size is four to eight homogeneous
participants with sessions lasting one to two hours (Kitzinger, 1995).
Focus groups are to be used as the main form of information gathering. This method
has been selected to encourage students to talk about how and why they have made
the study decisions they have. By using the focus group technique, it is hoped that the
students will use each other to help express their thoughts and not feel intimidated
about providing information. There are likely to be many different reasons behind
their study choices and the facilitation of the focus group interview is important to
ensure useful information is obtained and therefore an experienced facilitator should
be used (Krudger & Casey, 2000).
3.4 Sample Selection: Which Schools and Students?
Sampling strategies can be divided into probability and nonprobability methods.
Probability strategies are generally used where the sampling frame can be determined
while nonprobability methods are used when the sampling frame is difficult to
determine. The availability of resources for conducting the research should also be
considered (Blaxter, Hughes, & Tight, 1996). To gain a representative sample of
student thoughts, students should be selected from throughout the country ensuring a
mixture of age, school type, and school decile ranking. Unfortunately, the limited
amount of time available for this research has meant a narrower approach has to be
taken and the research will only include Year 13 (final secondary school year)
19. Page 15
students. While many in this year group will have made their tertiary study choices
earlier, it is not until Year 13 that they have to act on their previous decisions.
A rule of thumb is to conduct three or four focus groups with any one type of
participant to avoid saturation which happens when no new information is being
obtained (Krudger & Casey, 2000). The intention is to interview students from four
schools. Three of these schools are from one geographical area. These three schools
have been selected on the basis of decile ranking and educational IT profile. Two mid
range decile (4 – 7) schools have been selected, one in a provincial area and the other
in a city area, while the third, a city school, has a higher decile ranking (8 – 10). One
of the schools has a CISCO academy while the other two do not. Each school will be
invited to participate by letters sent to both the principal and the Year 13 Dean. For
examples of these letters, refer to Appendices A and B. The fourth school has been
selected after they expressed an interest in the findings in the paper “Where have all
the students gone? IT Secondary Education in New Zealand” (Howard & Atkins,
2006). While this school is a single sex school and the other three are coeducational,
this research is not investigating gender differences. However, gender differences
may become evident when the responses obtained from this school are compared to
the other three schools.
Having selected the schools, the next step is to determine how best to select students.
This research is aimed at finding out why students make the decisions they do and
therefore self selected students will be used. It is anticipated this approach will result
in only those willing to be involved volunteering. The schools will be asked to canvas
for these volunteers.
It is hoped that 15 – 25 students from each school will be interested in participating.
This will allow students to be split into three groups based on the combination of
subjects they are currently studying, ideally giving groups of four to eight students.
These preferred groups are IT, physical sciences, and others. The rationale behind
these groups is that those currently studying IT based subjects have already made a
decision to learn more in this area and therefore may be more likely to continue with
IT tertiary study. IT is often considered to be a science by tertiary institutions and
therefore students currently studying science based subjects at school may be
potential tertiary IT students.
As this research involves human subjects, ethical approval has been obtained from the
Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology Research and Ethics Committee (refer
Appendix C). Written student consents will also be obtained and an example of this
consent form can be found in Appendix D.
3.5 Questions: What to Ask?
When preparing for an interview session it is recommended that both a topic guide
and a questioning route be prepared (Krudger & Casey, 2000). The topic guide is used
to ensure coverage is obtained, while the questioning route is the sequence of
questions to be asked, written as conversational sentences. The questioning route
should have an easy beginning by asking opening questions to get people talking,
followed by questions which introduce the topic to get people thinking about their
connection to the topic under discussion. Transitional questions should then be asked
20. Page 16
to move the conversation towards the key questions which are at the centre of the
research. These should be followed up with questions which bring the discussion to a
close. The questions should be structured so there is an easy flow between them, and
move from the general to the specific, while using the time available wisely (Krudger
& Casey, 2000).
Questions will be developed for each of the themes identified in the literature review
and then ordered to allow a flow between the topics and moving from general issues
of career selection to more specific questions about how the students have made
choices about IT courses and careers
3.6 Analysis: What do the Results Show?
Analysing focus groups involves locating the themes and identifying the patterns
which emerge from the interview (Krudger & Casey, 2000). Having taped and
transcribed the interviews, they will then be coded to pinpoint common themes related
to those already identified from the literature review and research questions. The
combined results from all of the focus groups will then be analysed, integrated, and
conclusions drawn.
3.7 Limitations: What Issues May Arise?
The above approach has limitations in the area of lack time and lack of experience in
using focus groups. The lack of time means it is not possible to interview a larger
sample of students from different geographical areas around New Zealand. This
means the students interviewed cannot be considered a representative sample. Also,
only Year 13 students are to be interviewed even though research suggests that
students make their career decisions at an earlier age.
The researcher has a lack of experience conducting focus group interviews. However,
as a registered secondary teacher, the researcher is familiar with interacting with
students in this age group. This lack of experience may result in insufficient
comparable information being gathered from the students interviewed which could
affect the conclusions drawn from that information.
4 Actual Research Description
4.1 Focus Group
Four themes were evident from the literature review: careers in general, perceptions
of IT careers, perceptions of IT tertiary courses, and perceptions of IT secondary
courses. From these a topic guide was developed outlining the type of information to
be obtained. Next, a questioning route was developed to move from the general
issues of career selection to more specific questions about how the students have
made choices about IT courses and careers. Finally, the focus group questions were
written which combined the topic guide and questioning route. This is attached in
Appendix E.
The plan was to conduct a number of focus group interviews at four different schools
depending on the number of students who volunteered. Two schools agreed to
participate in the research, with one organising a tourism class to be involved, while
21. Page 17
no students volunteered from the second school because of the time of the year with
school exams approaching. Due to timetable limitations, students were interviewed
as a group. This resulted in only one focus group taking place. By interviewing them
as one group, a new issue was introduced because the group became too big to have a
discussion and ended up resembling a group interview rather than a focus group
discussion.
A focus group involves the participants doing most of the talking, however it soon
became evident that the group of students did not know enough about IT to discuss
their thoughts. This resulted in the planned questions being changed and new
questions being asked. The discussion was recorded, transcribed and coded for
common themes. The coded transcription is contained on the attached CD.
4.2 First Survey
An opportunity arose to survey approximately sixty Year 12 and 13 students attending
a Bachelor of Arts information seminar. The survey (refer to Appendix F) was based
on the focus group questions and the literature review. The students were not a
representative sample of this age group because the seminar was aimed at students
with a particular interest, but it was felt it would provide interesting information
which could be used in conjunction with the focus group. The analysed results are
contained on the attached CD.
4.3 Second Survey
With the lack of students volunteering for the focus groups, and having completed a
survey, a second survey was initiated (refer to Appendix G). The questions for this
survey were developed from the focus group and first survey results. However, it was
not possible to follow up on everything covered in the focus group interview.
Because of the perceived lack of knowledge about IT careers in general, this survey
concentrated more on the selection of school subjects, information needed to explore
IT as a career option, and whether IT careers had been considered, rather than on
tertiary course selection.
Four schools were selected for this survey. Three of these schools were originally
invited to participate in the focus groups and the other school was selected to replace
the school where the focus group was conducted. This additional school was selected
on the basis of responses to the first survey. It is similar to the other schools selected
because it is coeducational but different because it is a new school having been
established in 2002. This may provide some different data because the school was
established after IT had become a norm. These schools were contacted and the three
schools originally selected for the focus groups agreed to participate, with two of
them returning completed surveys. The analysed results are contained on the attached
CD.
4.4 Recording of Results
The data collected from the focus group and some of the data collected from the
surveys requires a subjective approach to recording. This includes how to classify the
comments made by the students participating in the focus group, and the classification
22. Page 18
of the open ended questions in the surveys. These classifications will be detailed in
the appropriate research results sections below.
4.5 Likely Effect of Change
Focus groups were selected initially because they would provide more information on
why students made their decisions, however the surveys focus more on what these
decisions were. The different types of data obtained may make it difficult for direct
comparison between the focus group data and the survey data from being made. This
may also be the case with the two surveys because different questions have been
asked in them. This may affect the types of conclusions drawn.
4.6 Reflection
I may have had a better response in gaining volunteers if I had arranged a time to
speak with the students myself rather than asking the Deans to do it. This would have
allowed me to explain my research in more detail and answer any questions the
students had about the research and what was expected of them. Alternatively, I
could have targeted only those students currently studying IT at school because they
would appear to already have an interest in this area.
As I transcribed and coded the focus group interview, I realised there were comments
made by the students which had not been followed up. For example, a number of
students commented they thought IT careers were boring or they weren’t interested in
them. These types of responses would have provided an ideal opportunity to ask the
question ‘why’ to get more information from the students in this area. If I had been
able to run the other focus groups as planned, I would have been more aware of these
types of responses and had my own prompts to ask ‘why’. If these follow up
questions had been asked, I may have gained a better understanding of how students
perceive IT careers as a whole.
After the focus group interview, the teacher and I had a quick discussion about what
had been said. When planning the interview, I had not considered this, which meant I
didn’t record the conversation we had. Fortunately, I documented this conversation
soon afterwards, but by not recording it, I lost the actual comments made by the
teacher.
When initially planning the focus groups, I was unsure whether having a teacher
present would be an advantage or a disadvantage. I felt a teacher may inhibit the
students making comments about school subjects, particularly if these were negative.
On reflection, I think having the teacher present, while maybe inhibiting the previous
type of comment being made, actually helped the discussion because of the
encouragement given to the students to participate and asking relevant questions of
both myself, for clarification, and of the students, to get them thinking. Also, the
teacher was able to provide their own thoughts on the discussion which provided
additional data for my research.
Finally, when preparing the focus group questions, I was working on an assumption
that students were generally aware of IT as a career option. However, the difficulties
the focus group participants had in discussing IT careers illustrated this was not the
case. This meant many of the questions which had been prepared were not useful. If
23. Page 19
I had considered this situation initially, I would have been able to prepare a separate
selection of questions to cover this eventuality which may have resulted in more
useful data being obtained.
5 Research Results
This section separately records the results from the three different surveys conducted.
Subheadings using the themes identified from the focus group have been used to
organise the results. Relevant student comments are shown in italics and are direct
quotes taken from either the focus group transcript or the surveys. All of the student
comments from the surveys are available on the attached CD, along with the coded
transcript of the focus group.
5.1 Focus Group
The group consisted of 19 Year 13 students of whom five were international students
and two were doing IT based courses. The students appeared to find the questions
relating to their own knowledge easier to answer than those relating to ideas they had
not previously thought about. Examples of the easier questions were those related to
when they seriously considered their career options, how they would describe people
involved in the IT industry, and their own feelings on IT careers. Examples of the
more difficult questions related to the types of IT careers they were aware of and the
skills involved in these. Initially it was difficult to get the students to participate.
Their reluctance seemed to be connected to their lack of knowledge of the areas being
covered. However, once they started asking questions of the interviewer, their
interest in the proceedings increased. They became more involved in the discussion
resulting from their questions and seemed more willing to discuss the areas in which
they lacked knowledge. This provided interesting data which had not been
anticipated and gave a more indepth understanding of the issues surrounding the
research objective.
A short conversation occurred with the teacher at the conclusion of the interview.
Having heard the students’ comments, she was surprised at their lack of knowledge of
IT as a career. She was also surprised that the students from Germany had attended
schools which did not offer IT as a subject option. She felt the lack of resources in
their school would not be helping the situation. They do not have enough computers
available for the students to use for general research so they have to rely on books
instead.
The questions were based around the themes identified from the literature review:
careers in general, perceptions of IT careers, perceptions of IT tertiary courses, and
perceptions of secondary courses. On analysing the responses, sub themes became
evident: making career choices, awareness of the IT industry, perceptions of people in
IT, making course choices, the importance of IT, and information needed. The
relationship between the original themes and the sub themes is shown in Table 2. The
complete transcription and coding is included on the enclosed CD.
24. Page 20
Table 2 Relationship between Original Themes and Sub Themes
Original Themes
Careers
in
General
Perceptions
of IT
Careers
Perceptions
of IT
Tertiary
Courses
Perceptions
of IT
Secondary
Courses
Making Career Choices *
Awareness of the IT Industry *
Perceptions of People in IT *
Making Course Choices * *
Information Needed *
Sub Themes
Importance of IT *
5.1.1 Making career choices
Since the students were in their last year of secondary education, they were asked
what their plans were for 2007. These plans can be categorised as tertiary courses
(21%), working (21%), unsure (32%), and returning to school in Germany (26%).
Those who had actual plans included tertiary courses such as early childhood,
teaching, and radio broadcasting, or working in areas including hairdressing, or to
earn money before attending university the following year. Those students who had
made career choices indicated they had done so based on their interests and these
decisions were made in Year 11 (You get made to think what you are interested in
fifth form) or in Year 13 (This year because we have to).
When gauging their thoughts about IT careers, many were not interested in computers
(eight students) or thought they were boring (three students). Three students indicated
they were more interested in other things. One student thought it may be an option
for them but they were not sure. Some of their comments included:
I look at seeing it as like that sort of thing is more of a sit down office job and
that’s not something I’m interested in doing like sitting down all day
I’m just not really interested in going into a career in that sort of thing like I
can use a computer like anyone else but don’t need it for my job
Um, it doesn’t affect me; it’s too far off, like I haven’t done any computer
subjects ever. It isn’t interesting at all. Seems too far away to be trained up
and skilled and everything in it.
Um after doing a few courses I realise how boring it is and I can’t really see
myself sitting behind a desk
When summing up their feelings about IT, two students agreed with the comment
that, because they have grown up with computers, they didn’t see it as a career option.
26. Page 22
The following related comment was made by a student when they described their
feelings about an IT career:
I look at seeing it as like that sort of thing is more of a sit down office job and
that’s not something I’m interested in doing like sitting down all day
In relation to the social skills an IT person might have, one student responded
They could have anything
The final question asked in this section was how they would describe the type of
student interested in studying IT at tertiary level. The following comments were
made:
Bright student bright
Someone interested in it
5.1.4 Making course choices
Students were asked a range of questions about both secondary school and tertiary
course choices. The results from the questions relating to secondary school courses
will be documented first followed by the tertiary course comments.
When asked about the relationship of school subject choice and career choice, one
student described it as being:
Well most people have kind of left their options wide so can kind of go any
path. Just make sure they have UE so they can go anywhere.
Two students thought STAR courses might be useful to find out more about IT
courses and careers
Two students indicated they would like to have taken an IT subject but were unable to
because it did not fit into their timetables. Some of the reasons provided by students
on how they chose whether to study IT based subjects or not were:
Didn’t have many options
Didn’t really enjoy the teacher so didn’t enjoy really enjoy the class
Good to have the knowledge like you do learn a bit good to have some kind of
computer knowledge by the time you leave school
Didn’t interest me like that much I kinda did it as a subject
Not interested in computers
Students were asked their views on whether the type of assessment method
(achievement standards or unit standards) influenced their decision to study IT or not.
The following observations were made:
Achievement standards are usually better on your university entrance
Internal can be reassessed, plus there is more pressure on externals exams
…you get the same credits no matter what you got … with NCEA
In relation to the lack of opportunity to enter scholarship exams, one student
commented that this
Depends if you excel in that subject
27. Page 23
Some students made general comments about the subject and its content:
I think it is really hard work in school tries to do something like this. It’s
really hard to program and stuff
In Germany we don’t have the chance to try some computer subjects
Take a long time to learn more about it because I don’t have the options in
Germany at school so
Probably be different if we had to take it compulsory in one year
The effect of school subjects on tertiary course choices was summed up by one
student as
It probably does help
Students were asked what types of things they considered when making the decision
to undertake tertiary study. Three students thought it was important to be interested in
it, while other comments included job opportunities, location, and whether they would
have a student loan at the end of it. When considering the location of tertiary study,
one student observed that
I’m because like I’m in Nelson, I don’t have to pay so far as my living
expenses because I will be at home so that’s quite a big difference that would
make me change
With the issue of cost being raised, students were asked if they were aware of any
financial incentives like scholarships and half a degree for free initiatives. While they
were unaware of these, they thought that
If you went looking for it you could find the information on it you know and
like get told to you and things like that
Advertise at sort of open ……, opening thing
Three students thought they might change their decision about undertaking tertiary
study if they were aware of these types of financial incentives. Additional comments
included:
That’s the reason they don’t do it?? It’s quite expensive
Scholarship they’d do it
When asked if it was important to have your own computer if choosing to study an IT
course, two students thought it would, one thought it would not, and two thought it
might.
Finally, students were asked which other people influenced them when choosing a
course. This resulted in the responses of parents, friends and people who have done a
course you want to do say its crap.
30. Page 26
5.2.2 Awareness of the IT industry
Students were asked to list the different types of IT jobs they were aware of. These
were analysed for common terminology and summarised as shown in Figure 3.
Programmer includes software development. Used in other careers includes
accounting, advertising, business worker, product development, tourism, and trades.
Graphical includes animation, movie making, graphics design, and word and desktop
publishing. Other includes computer modelling, computer science, and editing.
21
2
15
10
8
5
3 3
1
3
0
5
10
15
20
25
N
ot answ
ered
D
on't know
/none Program
m
er
Technician
Used in othr careers
G
raphical
Teaching
W
eb D
evelopm
ent N
etw
orking
O
ther
Career or Job
Frequency
Figure 3 IT job awareness
Of the 41 students answering the question on what they think the future of IT jobs will
be, 22% thought there would be a shortage of IT jobs, 54% thought there would be a
surplus, and 24% thought there would be neither a shortage nor surplus of jobs.
5.2.3 Perceptions of people in IT
Students were asked a number of questions about their perceptions of people in the IT
industry.
Of the 42 students responding to the amount of time IT people used computers, half of
them thought they used them all of the time while 48% thought it would be some of
the time. The remaining 2% thought they would hardly use them.
Of the 42 students responding to how IT people work, 21% thought they would
generally work by themselves, 10% in teams, and 69% a mixture of both.
71% of the 41 students thought IT people needed lots of technical skills, while 29%
thought they would need some.
74% of the 41 students thought IT people would need some people skills, while 24%
thought they would need lots. Only 2% thought they would need none.
Students were asked to describe a person interested in an IT career. They could select
as many options as they wanted. Five students did not answer this question. The
results are shown in Figure 4.
31. Page 27
19
10
5
3
8
0
5
10
15
20
Interesting Geek/Nerd Boring Smart/Intelligent Other
Description
Frequency
Figure 4 Description of people interested in IT
The ‘other’ category included the following comments:
Skilled but often lacking in personal communication skills
A person doing what they enjoy
Interesting if you’re interested in IT otherwise I wouldn’t know what they were
talking about
Quiet, interested in technology – computers
There’s not really a stereotype
The source of their ideas about IT people is shown in Figure 5. All but four of the
students answered this question. While the instructions requested only one answer,
many students selected more than one.
25
9
4 4
9
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
TV People in IT Own Research School Other
Source
Frequency
Figure 5 Source of ideas about IT people
The ‘other’ category included the following two sources.
I don’t have much knowledge at all
Reading books
5.2.4 Making course choices
Not all of the students responded to the question on why they choose to study or not
to study IT based subjects at Year 12 and 13. One Year 12 student didn’t respond,
one Year 13 responded only in relation to Year 13, and two Year 13s only responded
