Background
The study OEK-Transition is a follow-up study of the SNF project OEKOMA ("Economic Competencies of Students at Matura Level"; University of Zurich, Prof. Dr. Franz Eberle), whichis funded by the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung. OEKOMA was conducted in the German-speaking part of Switzerland in summer 2011 and comprises a representative sample of over 2.300 Students at Matura Level. These students were tested for their economic competencies, mathematic performance, reading comprehension and cognitive abilities. Furthermore, they were asked about their future plans concerning educational aspirations. The aim of the follow-up study OEK-Transition is to analyze the educational and vocational pathways of these students. A special focus lies on the long range effects of economic competencies, especially on academic success. The follow-up study is conducted by the University of Konstanz (Management by Prof. Dr. Stephan Schumann) in cooperation with the University of Zurich (Prof. Dr. Franz Eberle) and the University of Tübingen (Prof. Dr. Benjamin Nagengast).
Research Questions
Up to now, there is almost no empirical evidence on the interrelation between economic competencies and academic and/or vocational success. Against this background the study aims to answer the question, to what extent economic (and other) competencies of a representative sample of Swiss students at Matura Level interrelate with their chosen field of study and their academic success within this field of study. Thereby, a main focus lies on the examination of the incremental validity of economic competencies by controlling these interrelations for cognitive prerequisites, university type, academic grades, etc.
Method
To answer the research questions, the students of the OEKOMA sample were contacted five years after the OEKOMA-study was conducted in Spring/Summer 2016. A combination of an online questionnaire and a computer-assisted-telephone interviewing (CATI) was used to ask for the educational pathways, academic success, and different other individual and contextual covariates (e.g. parents’ educational background, study conditions, etc.). First results of the Follow-up study will be published in 2017.