Preference for Scientist Occupation Among Medical and Science Students in South Korea

Although becoming a scientist is generally a long and arduous process, fostering scientists is considered important for national development. To determine medical and science undergraduate students' preference for scientists, a designed preference survey was administered to 191 medical and 106 science majors, online. The chi-square test, regression, and mediation models were used. The models present significant associations between group and training programs, and between master's programs and scientist preference. Surprisingly, only 24% of the science students were interested in the Ph.D. program compared to 79.6% of the medical students. Less than 7% in both groups expressed interest in full-time scientist occupation. The study design and findings are newly reported. A negative public consensus of scientist occupation is identified, and master training program shows a strong association with the choice of scientist occupation. Due to the unstable scientists' status, a long-term follow-up is recommended afterward program completion for more effectively fostering scientists.