Inside IES Research

Welcome to Career and Technical Education (CTE) month!

Over the course of the next few weeks, we will be blogging about IES projects and resources relevant to CTE. We will be highlighting grant competitions, including our newest competition, Expanding the Evidence Base for Career and Technical Education, which aims to increase research on the impact of CTE programs and policies on student outcomes and support training of new CTE researchers. And we will showcase work conducted by IES and our grantees.

For this first blog, we wanted to share our working definition of CTE, along with links to information and resources.

CTE aims to help students enter into and succeed in specific occupational fields such as health science, information technology, and business administration. Students in secondary, postsecondary, and adult education may pursue CTE activities as part of their other education requirements (e.g., courses for high school graduation, classes to prepare for General Equivalency Development or General Equivalency Diploma (GED) test) or as a program to earn an occupational certificate at the subbaccalaureate level.

Over the past decade, interest has been growing in CTE and career pathway models across public and private arenas. For example, at the federal level, interest in CTE is reflected in the legislations that authorize these education and training activities, namely the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006  and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014.

At IES, our goal is to identify the needs of CTE students and expand our understanding of effective CTE practices. For example, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) assists in monitoring the status of CTE by providing national information on student participation in CTE at the secondary and postsecondary levels and on adults’ preparation for work. This information is available on the CTE Statistics website.

The National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE) also supports work on CTE. For example, NCEE’s Regional Education Laboratory Programs work with policymakers and practitioners on career and college readiness issues, including CTE. Some regions have groups that focus on CTE directly, such as REL Appalachia's West Virginia Workforce Readiness Partnership and REL Mid-Atlantic's Readiness for Career Entry and Success Research Alliance.

The two grant-awarding centers, the National Center for Education Research (NCER) and the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) support field-initiated research in CTE primarily through the Career and Technical Education, Postsecondary and Adult Education, and Transition Outcomes for Secondary Students with Disabilities topic areas. In September 2017, NCER and NCSER sponsored a technical working group meeting to gain insights from CTE practitioners and researchers. On January 22, NCER released the request for applications for the new research network mentioned above, Expanding the Evidence Base for Career and Technical Education.

We look forward to sharing more information about our CTE research and statistics. Come back throughout the month to hear from IES staff and grantees about this work!

By Meredith Larson (NCER)

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) funds research in a broad array of education topics. In fact, the Education Research Grants Program alone funds research in 11 specific topics, such as early learning, reading and writing, STEM, postsecondary and adult education, English learners, social behavioral contexts for learning and others.

In 2017, the National Center for Education Research (NCER) introduced a twelfth area, Special Topics, to address important areas in education that are of high interest to policy makers and practitioners where there is a research gap.

As we noted in a previous blog, Career and Technical Education (CTE) is one such area. Across the country, CTE programs and policies are growing, creating a greater need for high-quality, independent research in this area. The Career and Technical Education (CTE) special topic seeks to fill this research gap by funding projects that study the implementation of CTE programs and policies and how they impact student outcomes in K-12 education. In 2017, IES has funded its first three special topic research grants on CTE:

• New York University will study the impact of New York City's Career Technical Education programs on students' career and work-related learning experiences, social and behavioral competencies, high school completion, and transitions to college and the work place;
• The Education Development Center will lead a study that compares three different ways that CTE is delivered in California—career academies, career pathways, and elective CTE courses. The researchers will examine relationships between CTE delivery mode and student outcomes; and
• A study of Florida’s CTE certification program will be conducted by Research Triangle Institute (RTI). The study will identify which high school certifications are associated with a higher likelihood of passing certification exams and whether obtaining a certification leads to better attendance, graduation rates, and postsecondary enrollment and persistence.

For its 2018 grant competition, IES is again accepting applications for CTE research grants, as well as two other special topics.

The Arts in Education special topic funds research to better understand how arts programs and policies are implemented and the impact they have on student outcomes. The research coming out of this program can help inform policy debates regarding the benefits of arts programming in schools. (Read a recent blog post on this topic.)

The Systemic Approaches to Educating Highly Mobile Students special topic seeks to fund research aimed at improving the education and outcomes for students who frequently move schools because of changes in residence and/or unstable living arrangements. This includes students who are homeless, in foster care, from migrant backgrounds or are a part of military families. (Read a recent blog post on this topic.)

You can learn more about these and other funding opportunities on the IES website, and on Facebook and Twitter. 

Written by Dana Tofig, Communications Director, IES

By Corinne Alfeld, Program Officer, NCER

February is Career Technical Education (CTE) month and there is certainly cause to celebrate for those who value CTE. After years of being marginalized in K-12 education and education research, CTE programs and offerings are growing across the country.   

Once known as “vocational-technical education,” CTE has undergone a transformation in the last decade that keeps pace with changes in workforce. High schools now offer elective CTE courses such as agricultural science, business entrepreneurship, computer graphic design, culinary arts, communications, health care, and mechatronics.  High school CTE courses have the ability to provide a context for students to explore possible careers, test their interests and abilities, apply academic knowledge and skills to real-world problems in a more project-based, hands-on way, and learn a useful skill. In other words, CTE can answer the question that many students ask: Why do I need to learn this?

Due in part to employer interest and involvement, CTE has become more of a focus for policymakers and education leaders as a way to ensure students are “college and career ready” when they graduate from high school. In 2015, the Association for Career and Technical Education documented 150 new and revised CTE laws or policies across 46 states. CTE programs are undergoing transformation with newfound vitality and momentum, with new delivery models, such as career academies, in which the entire curriculum is focused on one career area; programs of study that link high school and college courses with workplace experience; and regional CTE centers, which contain specialized equipment shared by multiple schools or districts and focus solely on CTE.

This means that CTE learning opportunities for students may range from a single introductory course in a traditional high school setting to a highly coordinated curricular experience of classroom- and work-based learning, culminating in a capstone project. 

As CTE becomes a larger part of the current education landscape, policymakers and practitioners need better evidence to guide their decision-making, especially given limited resources. For example, more research is needed on the following:

• The relationships between specific career-focused school, program, or curricular features and student education outcomes;
• Longitudinal pathways and outcomes for students enrolled in K-12 CTE programs (e.g., postsecondary education and employment);
• Development of effective career-oriented programs or policies designed to support students’ career readiness outcomes;
• Rigorous evaluation of existing career-focused schools or programs, including career technical programs of study, career academies, and other K-12 CTE delivery models;
• Rigorous evaluation of state or district policies or reforms to support career technical education at the K-12 level, including the awarding of vocational diplomas, the use of career readiness measures, career academy models, awarding academic credit for CTE courses, and CTE teacher certification requirements; and
• Development or improvement of measures of technical, occupational, and career readiness skills.

There are certainly challenges in studying CTE. In addition to the wide variety of CTE courses being offered, the range and quality of instructional CTE offerings can vary within and across schools.