고등학생들의 이공계 기피현상 실태분석 및 개선방안

Abstract

본 연구에서는 다루고자 하는 주된 문제는, 고등학생들의 이공계 대학 진학 기피현상은 어떻게 진전되고 있는가? 학생들의 이공계열 기피현상은 어떤 측면에서 문제를 가질 수 있는가? 그리고 이공계열 기피현상은 어느 정도로 우려스러운 것인가? 즉, 현재의 추세에 비추어 볼 때, 향후 이공계 인력 수급에 어느 정도로 심각한 결과를 낳을 것인가? 학생들은 이공계 진학을 기피하는 요인은 무엇인가? 등과 같이 현상의 실태와 관련된 문제들이다. 그리고 현상에 대한 보다 명확한 분석을 시도하고, 분석 결과에 입각하여 정책방안을 제시하고자 한다.

Recently, in Korea, the avoidance of science and engineering academic fields of Korean high school students has become one of the most important public issues since the high-quality manpower in these fields has been emphasized as one of the essential elements for strengthening the competitive power of the Korean economy. The stake holders in these issue such as policy makers( in Ministry of Education and Human Resources, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Industry and Resources, etc.), professors and teachers, professionals, etc., have shown enormous interest in developing the policies and strategies for improving the current situation. However, surprisingly, there is scanty empirical research related to this issue. There has been very weak evidence for the phenomenon itself of the avoidance of science and engineering fields. It is necessary to try thorough research on the phenomenon itself in order to develop the feasible and efficient policies. Thus, in this study, we tried, first of all, to understand the current situation of avoidance of science and engineering fields of high school students. We tried to figure out 1) whether there is a remarkable tendency to avoid these fields or not 2) if so, why? 3) is the tendency shown stronger for students of high academic achievement? In order to answer these questions, we analyzed the primary data. One set of the data is the educational statistics related to these issues during 1980-2001 years. The other data source is the statistics on the majors at colleges of the students of high achievement(top 4%) in Korean scholastic aptitude test(KSAT) during 1998-2001. In addition, we administered the survey on the educational plan and the opinions about the current phenomenon of avoidance of science and engineering fields to 6,383 students and 346 teachers in 88 high school students in Korea. Besides, in order to draw policy implication, we benchmarked other countries' cases, especially the French case. Based on these works, we suggested policies and strategies to improve the avoidance of the science and engineering fields of high school students. ...