IES Blog

“Does Career and Technical Education (CTE) work?” and “For whom does CTE work and how?” are questions on many policymakers’ and education leaders’ minds and ones that the CTE Research Network aims to answer. The mission of the Network, as described in a previous blog post, is to increase the amount of causal evidence in CTE that can inform practice and policy. The Network’s members, who are researchers funded by IES to examine the impact of CTE, have been busy trying to answer all of these questions.

This blog describes three Network updates:

• Shaun Dougherty, of Vanderbilt University, and his colleagues at the University of Connecticut have been studying the effects of attending a CTE-focused high school among 60,000 students in Connecticut as part of their Network project. They recently reported that:
  • When compared to males attending traditional high schools, males who attended CTE schools were 10 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school and were earning 31 percent more by age 23. The authors noted that the more CTE courses that are available at the regular high school, the less attendance at a CTE high school makes a difference.
  • Analyses of potential mechanisms behind these findings reveal that male students attending a technical high school have higher 9th grade attendance rates and higher 10th grade test scores. However, they are 8 percentage points less likely to attend college (though some evidence indicates that the negative impact on college attendance fades over time).
  • Attending a CTE high school had no impacts on female students. Further, the effects did not differ over student attributes like race and ethnicity, free lunch eligibility or residence in a poor, central city school district.

The study results are being disseminated widely in the media, including via the Brookings Brown Center Chalkboard, The Conversation, and the National Bureau of Economic Research.

• In other news, the CTE Research Network has welcomed a fourth IES-funded project, led by Julie Edmunds. Edmunds’ team is studying dual enrollment pathways in North Carolina, and one of the pathways focuses on CTE.

• Finally, the two co-PIs for the Network Lead, Kathy Hughes and Shaun Dougherty, recently participated in a Q&A in Techniques magazine about the purpose of the CTE Network, how the Network will help the field of CTE, and how each of their careers has led them to this work.

The Network Lead has launched a new website where you can get new information about ongoing work and sign up to receive their newsletter.

This post was written by Corinne Alfeld, the NCER-IES program officer responsible for the CTE research topic and the CTE Research Network. Contact her at Corinne.Alfeld@ed.gov with questions.

Over the past few years, staff from IES and the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), have been learning from and supporting one another’s work. Our offices have a shared interest in understanding and improving outcome for adults in postsecondary career pathway programs and for creating a strong evidence base.

We have even funded projects that dovetail nicely. For example, IES funded a development project focusing on Year Up, and OPRE included Year Up programs in their Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) Study.

For IES researchers not already aware of OPRE’s research, we would like to highlight three things that may be particularly relevant to the work IES hopes to support.

A Growing Portfolio of Career Pathway Research: For over a decade, OPRE has created a robust research portfolio longitudinal, rigorous experimental career pathways program research.  These career pathway programs provide postsecondary education and training through a series of manageable steps leading to successively higher credentials and employment opportunities. In particular, OPRE has supported the Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) Study and the rigorous evaluation of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program. You can find reports from these and other self-sufficiency, welfare, and employment activities in the OPRE Resource Library.

Available Data and Funding Opportunity: Later this summer, OPRE will be archiving data from PACE and HPOG at the University of Michigan’s Inter-University Consortium on Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the Institute for Social Research. These data will be available as restricted-use files for secondary data analysis. To encourage research, OPRE announced a funding opportunity Career Pathways Secondary Data Analysis Grants to support secondary analysis these data. Applications are due August 16, 2019.

Understanding Programs’ Motivations for Participating in Research: Getting education programs (schools, universities, etc.) to join multi-year, randomized controlled trials is difficult. Programs are wary of random assignment or finding null or negative effects. Yet, the programs that participated in the PACE Study were overall quite supportive. A recent report “We Get a Chance to Show Impact”, Program Staff Reflect on Participating in a Rigorous, Multi-site Evaluation documents the hurdles and benefits of participation from a program’s point of view. These programs’ insights are particularly useful for any researcher hoping to form partnerships with education settings.

To learn more about the ongoing career pathways research at OPRE and their findings, please visit https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/research/project/career-pathways-research-portfolio.

Since February is Career and Technical Education (CTE) Month—let’s look at what is going on in CTE training and research. Formerly known as “vocational education,” CTE generally comprises instruction in the academic, technical, and employability skills and knowledge required to enter into and succeed in specific occupations. CTE can introduce high school students to different career paths and help them build marketable skills or even credentials. For college students, CTE offers an entry point for new and returning students as they gain knowledge and skills in certain occupational fields.

Many policymakers consider CTE to be a key aspect of “college and career readiness.” In 2017, 49 states enacted 241 CTE policies, and 42 states enacted an additional 146 CTE policies in 2018. However, CTE practice and policy are way ahead of research—particularly in terms of research that can more definitively link CTE to specific outcomes and impacts. Over the past few years, IES has made some important strides in this area.

Following a Technical Working Group meeting on the future of CTE research, IES partnered with the Office of Career Technical and Adult Education to launch a new research network called “Expanding the Evidence Base for Career and Technical Education (CTE).” 

The CTE research network is a five-year grant, to be led by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), with partners at Vanderbilt University, Jobs for the Future, and the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE). Currently, three IES research projects have joined the new network, and we hope to eventually include up to six. All of these projects will look at the causal impact of CTE on student outcomes.

Throughout the five-year grant period, the Network Lead will bring together project teams and help to provide vision and support to the research projects as a whole. The Network Lead will also conduct research, provide CTE research training activities, and work to disseminate the Network’s research products so that they can reach the widest possible stakeholder audience. 

The first meeting of the Network members occurred on January 8, 2019 in Washington, DC, where members began to set the priorities for collaborative work across projects. Network members agreed that it is critical for all research projects to provide detailed data broken out by CTE field and by student subgroups, including students with disabilities.

One key priority of the Network is to develop a working definition of CTE for research purposes (i.e., how to define a CTE student and how to measure CTE participation). A related priority is to identify or develop appropriate measures of CTE participation and outcomes that network members, as well as other CTE researchers, can use. Over the course of the grant, network members will have the opportunity to collaborate on a variety of activities.

We will be reporting on the Network’s progress periodically on this blog, but readers are also encouraged to visit the CTE Research Network website, housed by AIR.

Blog post by Corinne Alfeld, program officer in the IES National Center for Education Research (NCER)

For more information about the CTE research network, contact corinne.alfeld@ed.gov. Corinne is also the program officer for NCER’s CTE research topic, which will be accepting grant applications for all types of CTE research later in 2019! (Note that funded studies designed to measure the causal impact of CTE programs or policies may be eligible to join the CTE research network in future years). Sign up for the IES Newsflash to be notified when the NCER Requests for Applications are released.

Career and Technical Education (CTE) has been evolving and expanding at a rapid pace in recent years as industry and education leaders focus on students’ readiness for college and careers. While some studies have shown positive effects of CTE on students, the evidence base is thin. To learn more about the research needs of the CTE field, the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) and the National Center for Education Research (NCER) at the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) convened a group of experts in policy, practice and research related to CTE.  The discussion held by the Technical Working Group (TWG) led both NCER and NCSER to increase their investments in CTE for fiscal year 2019: NCSER included a CTE special topic, and NCER changed its CTE topic from a special topic to a standing topic. Applications to both are due August 23, 2018.  Both research centers hope to fund more studies that will help us better understand this growing aspect of education.

The TWG focused on the following four questions:

1. Who is served by CTE and who is left behind? From national CTE statistics, we know that 82% of all public high schools offer CTE. And, 85% of students earn at least one credit in CTE with the average high school student earning 2.5 CTE credits. However, TWG members noted that research is lacking on specific subpopulations in CTE, such as students from various demographic backgrounds and students with disabilities. Disaggregated data on these dimensions are needed to better understand the CTE experiences of the range of students being served. Such data may help educators improve equity of access to high quality programs for all students.
2. What do we know―and need to know―about CTE policies, programs, and practices at the secondary and postsecondary levels?  TWG experts discussed the need to know more about industry-recognized credentials and about business and industry engagement in CTE at the secondary level. They argued that we do not know if credentials align with industry requirements, nor do we understand the impact of different types of credentials on student outcomes and wage trajectories. TWG members also noted that the higher the perceived quality or prestige of the CTE program, the more exclusive it becomes, and the more difficult it is for disadvantaged students to obtain access. TWG members also expressed concerns about CTE teacher training, particularly for experts who are recruited from industry without prior teacher preparation. As the experts discussed postsecondary CTE, they suggested that the field would be best served by framing the conversation about secondary to postsecondary pathways as a continuum that enables transparent and sequential transitions from secondary to 2-year and then to 4-year programs or to training or employment, with guidance for students to understand possible sequences.
3. What are the critical methodological issues in CTE?  TWG members noted that, with a few notable exceptions (e.g.,  a 2008  MDRC study on career academies in New York and a recent study of CTE high schools in Massachusetts), few causal studies on CTE have been conducted. There is an urgent need for more high quality, causal research on CTE policies and programs. In addition, the experts noted that there is almost no research on students with disabilities in CTE. TWG members concluded that the field needs to re-conceptualize CTE research – including better defining CTE students, instructors, programs, and measures – and identify the critical research questions in order to encourage more research in this field.
4. What is needed to advance CTE research?  State CTE administrators want to know how to identify quality CTE programs so they know how to spend their dollars most effectively on programs that best meet the needs of students. Policymakers also want to know what “works” and what the benefits are of such investments. The TWG members encouraged studies that examine the educational benefits of particular instructional approaches. They also highlighted the importance of collaborative cross-institutional and cross-agency efforts to advance CTE research.

Readers are invited to read the summary of the TWG discussion.

By Corinne Alfeld (NCER program officer) and Kimberley Sprague (former NCSER program officer)

As part of our series recognizing the IES investment in Career and Technical Education (CTE) research, we interviewed Esther Prins, Professor at Pennsylvania State University, about her NCER-funded project, Career Pathways Programming for Lower-Skilled Adults and Immigrants: A Comparative Analysis of Adult Education Providers in High-Need Cities.  This Researcher-Practitioner Partnership involves researchers at Pennsylvania State University working in collaboration with adult education providers in Chicago, Houston, and Miami to better understand how adult education programs are incorporating career pathways into their delivery models.

What is the education issue you and your partners trying to address?

Millions of U.S. adults have been left behind by the economy and rising education requirements for even minimum-wage jobs. Career pathway (CP) programs help adults prepare for employment and postsecondary education. Although recent federal policy (e.g., WIOA) has encouraged CP programming among adult education providers, there is little research to help guide practice and few opportunities for providers to learn about how their peers organize CP programs, who they serve, what outcomes they measure, and other program features.

What are career pathway programs in adult education?

CP programs develop adults’ basic math, reading, and English language skills, while concurrently preparing them to enter postsecondary education or jobs in specific fields like healthcare or manufacturing. These programs can be run through many kinds of institutions, including community colleges, workforce development organizations, and community-based organizations. The adults seeking CP classes may vary in their skill levels, but our project focused on the adults with greatest barriers to education and employment: those who did not graduate from high school or who have low math, reading, or English language scores.

What are some of the specific concerns your practitioner partners have?

Some practitioners are concerned that requirements programs must meet may unintentionally reward programs for enrolling higher-level students—the ones who are most likely to find a job or enroll in college—rather than serving students with the greatest need. They also want to know about what non-academic supports programs may need to provide, so we are exploring the role of wraparound support services. These are important because many adult learners experience poverty and related challenges such as transportation, childcare, housing, and financial instability.

What are some of the major findings thus far?

First, CP programming is widespread: more than 90% of the surveyed organizations offered or were developing CP classes in 2015. However, there are no shared program outcome measures, and this hinders comparison and documentation of programs’ collective impact. Coordination within cities primarily occurs on a small scale between a subset of organizations; citywide coordination across organizations and funding streams is less common.

Second, the majority of CP classes require students to meet minimum entry requirements such as passing a reading, math, or language test and/or possessing a high school degree. These requirements limit access for adults with the greatest barriers. To address these issues, programs are trying different options. For example, some programs offered multiple entry points (e.g., bridge classes) to enable adults with skills gaps to advance from lower-level to higher-level CP classes.

Third, agencies offer a variety of wraparound support services to meet students’ non-academic needs. Some programs bundle support services, meaning they require participation in at least two support services. These include screening for income supports and access to financial services, financial coaching and literacy, and job coaching.

The report on the survey is available online.

How are the findings being used?

Building on the findings from this study, the Chicago Citywide Literacy Coalition formed a group of 13 adult education providers to staff a Career Navigator at their local American Jobs Center to address issues such as forming shared program metrics, helping adults with lower skills, and connecting adults to support services available at the American Jobs Center. 

What other issues need to be studied?

Practitioners are interested in better understanding the long-term effects and trajectories of students in CP programs. For example, they’d like to know more about postsecondary and employment outcomes and whether certain individual characteristics, program supports, or instructional approaches lead to better outcomes. Additional research could help shed light on these issues.

Meredith Larson, NCER Program Officer, interviewed Esther Prins 

The figures above are from an infographic prepared by the research team and summarize the data gathered by the team.