Psychometric Properties of the Tech Career Scale
19 February 2026
The Hg Foundation commissioned NFER to develop and validate the Tech Career Scale: a self-report measure designed to assess young people’s knowledge, attitudes and behaviours relating to careers in tech, alongside perceived barriers.
The scale was developed to support impact measurement for programmes such as Futures For All’s IntoTech Programme, which aims to improve students’ knowledge of and attitudes towards tech careers.
A two-phase study with Year 10 pupils in schools in England was used to develop and test the instrument. In Phase 1 (474 pupils across 14 schools), exploratory factor analysis was used to refine items and identify the underlying structure. In Phase 2 (2,011 pupils across 29 schools), confirmatory factor analysis tested the model in an independent sample.
Findings supported a four-factor structure comprising Knowledge, Attitudes, Behaviours and Barriers. Reliability was acceptable to excellent for Knowledge (α = .92), Attitudes (α = .86), Behaviours (α = .94), and the overall scale (α = .94), with Barriers showing lower but still acceptable reliability (α ≈ .69).
Three subscales (Knowledge, Attitudes, Behaviours) showed meaningful positive associations with a short validation scale on intended A Level subject choices (maths, science, technology), while Barriers showed little association, suggesting it is best treated as an optional standalone subscale rather than included in the overall score
Key Findings
- The Tech Career Scale is a validated measure for secondary-aged pupils, developed and tested with Year 10 students in England, to support impact evaluation of programmes that aim to broaden participation in tech pathways.
- The scale consists of four subscales, Knowledge, Attitudes, Behaviours and Barriers, identified through exploratory factor analysis (N=474) and confirmed in an independent sample using confirmatory factor analysis (N=2,011).
- The scale provides reliable, clear, reportable outcomes for evaluation, including three core subscale scores (Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviours) and an overall score based on these three domains, while the Barriers scale is recommended to be reported separately as an optional module.
- The core subscales also show evidence of relevance to future pathways, because higher scores in Knowledge, Attitudes and especially Behaviours are associated with intended uptake of tech-aligned A Levels (maths, science and technology).
- The survey is practical for school-based delivery and pre/post evaluation designs, with a median completion time of around eight minutes and guidance (including percentile-band interpretation) to help translate results into accessible stakeholder-facing reporting.
Guidance for The Hg Foundation partners on how to use the Tech Career Scale can be found here.