Database of fields of education, with explanatory note

In addition to respondents’ highest educational qualification, some surveys also collect data on their main field of education. Current measurement practice involves either a closed question with highly aggregated response categories, which are difficult to use for respondents, or an open question, requiring expensive post-coding. Therefore, a measurement tool for fields of education was developed in the SERISS-project in work package 8, Task 8.3. In deliverable D8.9 we provide a database of fields of education and training in 34 languages, including the definition of a search tree interface to facilitate navigation of categories for respondents. All 120 standard categories and classification codes are taken from UNESCO's International Standard Classification of Education for Fields of Education and Training (ISCED-F). For most languages, detailed 3-digit information is available. The database, including a live search feature, is available at the surveycodings website at https://surveycodings.org/articles/codings/fields-of-education. The search tree can be used for respondents’ self-identification of fields of education and training in computer-assisted surveys. The live search feature can also be used for post-coding open answers in already collected data.