IES Blog

Institute of Education Sciences

You’ve Been Asked to Participate in a Study

Dear reader,

You’ve been asked to participate in a study.

. . . I know what you’re thinking. Oh, great. Another request for my time. I am already so busy.

Hmm, if I participate, what is my information going to be used for? Well, the letter says that collecting data from me will help researchers study education, and it says something else about how the information I provide would “inform education policy . . .”

But what does that mean?

If you’re a parent, student, teacher, school administrator, or district leader, you may have gotten a request like this from me or a colleague at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). NCES is one of 13 federal agencies that conducts survey and assessment research in order to help federal, state, and local policymakers better understand public needs and challenges. It is the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED’s) statistical agency and fulfills a congressional mandate to collect, collate, analyze, and report statistics on the condition of American education. The law also directs NCES to do the same about education across the globe.

But how does my participation in a study actually support the role Congress has given NCES?

Good question. When NCES conducts a study, participants are asked to provide information about themselves, their students or child/children, teachers, households, classrooms, schools, colleges, or other education providers. What exactly you will be asked about is based on many considerations, including previous research or policy needs. For example, maybe a current policy might be based on results from an earlier study, and we need to see if the results are still relevant. Maybe the topic has not been studied before and data are needed to determine policy options. In some cases, Congress has charged NCES with collecting data for them to better understand education in general.

Data collected from participants like you are combined so that research can be conducted at the group level. Individual information is not the focus of the research. Instead, NCES is interested in the experiences of groups of people or groups of institutions—like schools—based on the collected data. To protect respondents, personally identifiable information like your name (and other information that could identify you personally) is removed before data are analyzed and is never provided to others. This means that people who participate in NCES studies are grouped in different ways, such as by age or type of school attended, and their information is studied to identify patterns of experiences that people in these different groups may have had.

Let’s take a look at specific examples that show how data from NCES studies provide valuable information for policy decisions.

When policymakers are considering how data can inform policy—either in general or for a specific law under consideration—data from NCES studies play an important role. For example, policymakers concerned that students in their state/district/city often struggle to pay for college may be interested in this question:

“What can education data tell me about how to make college more affordable?”

Or policymakers further along in the law development process might have more specific ideas about how to help low-income students access college. They may have come across research linking programs such as dual enrollment—when high school students take college courses—to college access for underrepresented college students. An example of this research is provided in the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) dual-enrollment report produced by ED’s Institute for Education Sciences (IES), which shows that dual-enrollment programs are effective at increasing students’ access to and enrollment in college and attainment of degrees. This was found to be the case especially for students typically underrepresented in higher education.   

Then, these policymakers might need more specific questions answered about these programs, such as:

What is the benefit of high school students from low-income households also taking college courses?”

Thanks to people who participate in NCES studies, we have the data to address such policy questions. Rigorous research using data from large datasets, compiled from many participants, can be used to identify differences in outcomes between groups. In the case of dual-enrollment programs, college outcomes for dual-enrollment participants from low-income households can be compared with those of dual-enrollment participants from higher-income households, and possible causes of those differences can be investigated.

The results of these investigations may then inform enactment of laws or creation of programs to support students. In the case of dual enrollment, grant programs might be set up at the state level for districts and schools to increase students’ local access to dual-enrollment credit earning.

This was very close to what happened in 2012, when I was asked by analysts in ED’s Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development to produce statistical tables with data on students’ access to career and technical education (CTE) programs. Research, as reviewed in the WWC dual-enrollment report, was already demonstrating the benefits of dual enrollment for high school students. Around 2012, ED was considering a policy that would fund the expansion of dual enrollment specifically for CTE. The reason I was asked to provide tables on the topic was my understanding of two important NCES studies, the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002) and the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09). Data provided by participants in those studies were ideal for studying the question. The tables were used to evaluate policy options. Based on the results, ED, through the President, made a budget request to Congress to support dual-enrollment policies. Ultimately, dual-enrollment programs were included in the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V).  

The infographic below shows that this scenario—in which NCES data provided by participants like you were used to provide information about policy—has happened on different scales for different policies many times over the past few decades. The examples included are just some of those from the NCES high school longitudinal studies. NCES data have been used countless times in its 154-year history to improve education for American students. Check out the full infographic (PDF) with other examples.


Excerpt of full infographic showing findings and actions for NCES studies on Equity, Dropout Prevention, and College and Career Readiness


However, it’s not always the case that a direct line can be drawn between data from NCES studies and any one policy. Research often informs policy indirectly by educating policymakers and the public they serve on critical topics. Sometimes, as in the dual-enrollment and CTE programs research question I investigated, it can take time before policy gets enacted or a new program rolls out. This does not lessen the importance of the research, nor the vital importance of the data participants provide that underpin it.

The examples in the infographic represent experiences of actual individuals who took the time to tell NCES about themselves by participating in a study.  

If you are asked to participate in an NCES study, please consider doing so. People like you, schools like yours, and households in your town do matter—and by participating, you are helping to inform decisions and improve education across the country.

 

By Elise Christopher, NCES

Exploring the Growing Impact of Career Pathways

Career pathways programs for workforce development are spreading across the country at both the secondary and postsecondary levels. Based on a synthesis of studies examining career pathways programs that integrate postsecondary career-technical education (CTE), the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC)’s Designing and Delivering Career Pathways at Community Colleges practice guide presents five recommendations for implementing evidence-based practices:

Cover of advising practice guide
  1. Intentionally design and structure career pathways to enable students to further their education, secure a job, and advance in employment.
  2. Deliver contextualized or integrated basic skills instruction to accelerate students’ entry into and successful completion of career pathways.
  3. Offer flexible instructional delivery schedules and models to improve credit accumulation and completion of non-degree credentials along career pathways.
  4. Provide coordinated comprehensive student supports to improve credit accumulation and completion of non-degree credentials along career pathways.
  5. Develop and continuously leverage partnerships to prepare students and advance their labor market success.

Led by the WWC’s postsecondary contractor, Abt Associates, this practice guide was created by an expert panel of researchers and practitioners to provide examples of career pathways strategies and components and guidance to implement them; advise on strategies to overcome potential obstacles; and summarize evidence associated with rigorous research studies that met WWC standards.

As a long-time researcher of postsecondary CTE and many other important aspects of community college education, I welcome the opportunity to reflect on these five recommendations. I hope that my blog will help readers understand how this new practice guide fits into a larger landscape of research focusing on programs, policies, and practices aligned with the career pathways framework. Far from new, the notion of career pathways goes back several decades; thus, it is not surprising that we see an evolution in research to measure students’ education and employment outcomes. And still, there is a need for more rigorous studies of career pathways.

The Abt team located about 16,000 studies that were potentially relevant to the practice guide. Those studies used a wide variety of methods, data (quantitative and qualitative), and analysis procedures. Only 61 of them were eligible for review against the WWC standards, however; and only 21 of those met the WWC standards. Interestingly, most of those 21 studies focused on non-degree postsecondary credentials, rather than on college degrees, with policies and programs associated with workforce development and adult education well represented. Thus, lessons from the practice guide speak more directly to career pathways programs that culminate in credentials below the associate degree level than about those programs leading to the associate or baccalaureate degree level.

This dearth of rigorous career pathways research is problematic, as educational institutions of all types, including community colleges, seek to deliver positive, equitable outcomes to students during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Focus on Career Pathways

After examining the evidence from the studies that met the WWC standards, it was clear that the evidence converged around career pathways programs following requirements in the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act and Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). In alignment with the WIOA definition of career pathways, the set of studies in the practice guide examine a “combination of rigorous and high-quality education, training, and other services” that align with the skill needs of industries in the region or state and accelerate participants’ educational and career advancement, to the extent practicable.

As defined by WIOA, career pathways support learners in pursuing their education and career goals, lead to at least one postsecondary credential, and provide entry or advancement in a particular occupation or occupational cluster. Because a growing number of community colleges employ a career pathways approach, as advocated by the federal legislation, it made sense to focus the practice guide on rigorous results and evidence-based recommendations that may help to move career pathway design and implementation forward.

The Five Recommendations

Recommendation 1: Intentionally design and structure career pathways to enable students to further their education, secure a job, and advance in employment. Our panel advocated for the intentional design and structure of career pathways for good reason. Whereas all educational institutions enroll students in courses and programs, career pathways prioritize the student’s entire educational experience, from access and entry, to completion and credentialing, and on to employment and career advancement. This purposeful approach to supporting student attainment is theorized to lead to positive student outcomes.

Applying the meta-analysis process required by the WWC, we determined from the 21 studies whether career pathways were achieving this crucial goal. We found nine of the studies showed overall statistically significant, positive results on industry-recognized credential attainment. Of the 12 studies supporting this recommendation, most  measured non-degree credentials; only two measured degree attainment—an important point to recognize, because these are the studies that have been conducted thus far.

This very small number of rigorous studies measuring degree attainment leaves open the question of whether career pathways increase postsecondary degree attainment—specifically the predominant credential in the community college context, the associate degree—and calls for greater investment in research on student completion of associate degrees (as well as baccalaureate degrees, a growing phenomenon in the United States).

Recommendation 2. Deliver contextualized or integrated basic skills instruction to accelerate students’ entry into and successful completion of career pathways. Studies that met WWC standards showed a positive impact of career pathways on college credit accumulation and industry-recognized credential attainment. Only one study measured postsecondary degree attainment relative to contextualized and basic skills instruction and it reported statistically significant and negative results. However, descriptive and correlational studies suggest that contextualized and basic skills instruction contribute to positive educational outcomes for students enrolled in Adult Basic Education in addition to postsecondary CTE and workforce training.

That results of rigorous research complement descriptive studies, some of which provide rich details on program implementation, is information useful for scaling up community college career pathways. Having said this, we still need to know more about how contextualized, basic skills instruction—and other applied instructional interventions—affect the outcomes of students, especially those from racial minoritized groups, with low incomes, and who are the first generation to attend college, all purported to be well served by the career pathways approach.

Recommendation 3: Offer flexible instructional delivery schedules and models to improve credit accumulation and completion of non-degree credentials along career pathways. Studies supporting this recommendation focused on five education outcomes: industry-recognized credential attainment, academic performance, technical skill proficiency, credit accumulation, and postsecondary degree attainment. As seen with the previous two recommendations, results on industry-recognized credential attainment were statistically significant and positive. Results on academic performance, technical skill proficiency, and credit accumulation were indeterminate, meaning findings could be positive or negative but were not statistically significant.

What is important to reiterate here is that nearly all the studies that met the WWC standards focused on non-degree credentials, providing limited information about results on the education outcome of postsecondary degree attainment. To be clear, our panel is not saying career pathways should focus exclusively on non-degree credentials; rather that results on postsecondary degree attainment are not definitive. Even so, that findings linking flexible scheduling and non-degree credential attainment are positive is important to know now, when the country is dealing with the pandemic.

Community colleges nationwide are rethinking instructional delivery to better meet students’ dire health, family, and employment needs. Rigorous research on career pathways interventions, such as flexible delivery, is needed, particularly studies involving diverse student populations. In times of economic and social struggle, it is essential that community college career pathways produce the equitable outcomes they purport to provide.

Recommendation 4: Provide coordinated comprehensive student supports to improve credit accumulation and completion of non-degree credentials along career pathways. The rigorous studies meeting WWC standards and measuring outcomes relative to comprehensive student supports focused on the education outcome domain only. Similar to the previous recommendation on flexible scheduling, findings on industry-recognized credential attainment were statistically significant and positive. However, on supports, findings on credit accumulation were statistically significant and positive, reinforcing findings generated by other studies showing holistic supports improve student outcomes. For example, a meta-analysis of studies of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training grants that used rigorous evaluation designs reported favorable results for holistic supports in counseling and advising, case management, and various other support services and educational outcomes.

Consistent with the recommendations in this practice guide, a growing body of evidence favors integrating comprehensive student supports with career pathways. These supports are intended to meet the needs of the diverse population of students who attend community colleges; so, they should demonstrate equitable results on educational outcomes. More rigorous research is needed to measure whether and how career pathways provide access, opportunity, and outcomes for racially minoritized, low-income, and other underserved student groups. These studies should ascertain the impact of student supports on both education and employment outcomes, recognizing that students seek a high-quality credential and a good job that offers economic security and career mobility.

Recommendation 5: Develop and continuously leverage partnerships to prepare students and advance their labor market success. This recommendation specifically emphasizes labor market success, based on studies that examine labor market outcomes only. Supporting this recommendation were findings from studies of four labor market outcomes: short-term employment, short-term earnings, medium-term employment, and medium-term earnings. (The studies did not include long-term findings.)

Overall, statistically significant and positive outcomes were found in the meta-analysis for short-term employment, short-term earnings, and medium-term earnings. However, for medium-term employment, the meta-analysis results were indeterminate. To clarify, this does not mean employment-focused partnerships do not lead to labor market success; instead it points to a dearth of research that tracks students through training and into employment for long enough to measure long-term outcomes.

Even so, these initial findings from the meta-analysis are promising and suggest that developing and leveraging such partnerships may help move the needle on short- and medium-term employment outcomes. Longitudinal research that tracks students for periods sufficient to know whether long-term employment and earnings are affected should be a priority in the future.

Moving Forward

As I reflect on the research that I have conducted on career pathways over the years, I am gratified to see mounting evidence of positive student outcomes. As a first-generation college student myself, it has always made sense to me to demystify the college education process. Helping learners understand the entire educational journey, from start to finish, is bound to help them see how what they are learning may contribute to future education and career choices. I went to college not knowing what it would be like or whether I would be able to succeed, and I benefited from faculty and advisors who helped me see how my future could progress.

For other students like me who enter college without the benefit of family members sharing their stories of college-going, and for those who have to balance school with work and family care-taking responsibilities, it is important to know how a college education, including postsecondary CTE, can lead to positive educational and employment outcomes. Student groups underserved by postsecondary education deserve our most resolute and far-reaching efforts.

To this end, additional rigorous evidence on the impact of postsecondary CTE on college degree attainment could help to inform career pathways design, funding, and implementation. Also, as I reflected on the five recommendations, I was struck by the modest amount of research on medium-term labor market outcomes and the lack of any studies of long-term labor market outcomes. When the focus of career pathways is creating a path to living-wage employment and career advancement over the long term, it isn’t enough to know that students’ immediate employment outcomes were improved. When many students attending community colleges are already working, it isn’t even clear what immediate employment means.

If the outcome of interest for the majority of community college students who are adults and working is whether they get a better job and higher salary than they were getting pre-education, more nuanced measures and longer follow-up periods are needed than those provided by any of the research reviewed for this practice guide. It seems to me that finding more evidence of medium- and long-term outcomes could also provide more useful evidence of how career pathways work for diverse learner groups who are under-studied at the present time.

I was honored to help develop the practice guide with Hope Cotner, Grant Goold, Eric Heiser, Darlene Miller, and Michelle Van Noy. What an enormously gratifying experience it was to work with these professionals, the WWC team at Abt, and the Institute of Education Sciences staff. Working on this practice guide has left me feeling more optimistic about what we could learn with a more sizeable federal investment in research on postsecondary CTE in general, and on career pathways specifically. Rigorous evidence is needed to test models, explore interventions, and understand results for the plethora of learner groups who attend community colleges.

As the nation struggles to pull out of the pandemic that continues to rage in pockets across the country, it is the right time to invest in research that helps prepare students for good jobs that advance living-wage careers over a lifetime. A true commitment to equity in CTE programming is necessary for the nation, and now is the time to invest.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Debra D. Bragg, PhD, is president of Bragg & Associates, Inc., and the founder of research centers focusing on community college education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Washington. She spent the first 15 years of her career in academe studying postsecondary CTE for federally funded research centers, having devoted her entire research agenda to improving education- and employment-focused policies, programs, and practices to create more equitable outcomes for community college students. She served as an expert panelist for the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC)’s Designing and Delivering Career Pathways at Community Colleges practice guide.

 

 

CTE Statistics: New Information on How Adults Prepare for Work

By Lisa Hudson

Education provides students with the knowledge and skills needed to be informed citizens, productive workers, and responsible community members. Meeting one of these goals—preparing students for work—is the main goal of career and technical education (CTE, formerly known as vocational education). To monitor CTE in the United States, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) produces a comprehensive set of statistical data on CTE at the secondary and postsecondary levels, as well as on adult preparation for work. These statistics, and related reports, are available on the CTE Statistics website.

NCES recently released data related to preparation for work, which was collected as part of the 2016 Adult Education and Training Survey (ATES).  The ATES asked a nationally-representative sample of adults about their attainment of two often-overlooked work credentials—licenses and certifications—and about their completion of work experience programs (such as internships and apprenticeships).  The survey also examined the role of education in helping adults attain these credentials and complete these programs.

The data show that 21 percent of adults have a currently active license or certification, with 18 percent reporting they have a license and 6 percent reporting they have a certification (some adults have both). Additionally, completion of degree programs is related to the attainment of these work credentials. For example, having a certification or license is more common among adults who have a college degree than among adults with lower levels of education (see figure).  In addition, about two-thirds of the adults who have completed a certification or licensing program (67 percent) did so in conjunction with coursetaking after high school.



Findings are similar for work experience programs. Overall, 21 percent of adults have completed a work experience program, and 14 percent of adults have completed a work experience program that was part of an educational program after high school.

Finally, the ATES showed that work credentials and work experience programs are particularly common in the health care field. In fact, health care was the most common field in which both licenses and certifications were held (31 percent of credentialed adults), and the most common field in which adults had completed a work experience program (26 percent of program completers) .

The information discussed in this blog is drawn from the ATES “First Look” report. The CTE Statistics website also includes a summary of these key findings, and within the next year additional ATES statistics will be added to the website.  To sign up for automatic email notifications on when new material is added to the CTE Statistics website, visit the IES newsflash (under National Center for Education Statistics, check the box for “Adult and Career Education”).  We look forward to sharing future results with you!