The brief
The MCS Foundation wanted to investigate teachers’, parents/carers’ and career advisers’ perceptions of both green apprenticeships and green jobs, to understand what influences might prevent young people from choosing these routes.
This built on previous research with Gen Z investigating the barriers to young people taking up green apprenticeships.
The research’s aim was to generate findings that could be used to evidence intervention areas and improve messaging around technical routes into green careers.
The approach
This research used a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, over two phases:
Phase 1 – Interviews: We conducted 59 interviews, lasting 45 minutes each, with teachers, careers advisers and parents of young people aged 11 to 18. These interviews were semi-structured, allowing us to explore each audience’s awareness and perceptions of green apprenticeships and jobs, what they attributed their perspectives to, and how this impacted the conversations they had with young people.
Phase 2 – Survey: Findings from the interviews informed our survey design, which helped us further understand awareness and the prevalence of these perceptions. The survey was 32 questions long and received usable responses from 139 teachers (recruited through our respondent panel), 132 careers advisers and 1,000 parents/carers.
Across both the qualitative and quantitative phases, we used the COM-B model to scope subjects for discussion, to analyse the findings and to help generate ideas for our research questions.
The value
We produced a detailed report including actionable recommendations aiming to change both perceptions of green apprenticeships and to identify and work towards reducing the barriers to their provision. The MCS Foundation plans to share findings with relevant stakeholders and the report is due to be published on their website.
