CTE Advise: Advising Tools in Secondary Education

Project

Overview

Project Overview

New models of career and technical education (CTE) have expanded student choices and shifted towards high-quality, career-themed programs of study and pathways to careers. Advising within CTE programs plays a key role in guiding student pathway choices and ensuring that career information is received by all students, rather than a select few.

Many schools and districts supplement student career exploration and advising with technology-based advising tools. These tools are designed to help students identify the career interests, aptitudes, and personality traits that could make them successful in a variety of careers, including those they may not otherwise have identified as areas of interest.

CTE Advise: Advising Tools in Secondary Education aims to rigorously test two of the most popular of these tools, Xello and YouScience, to understand whether and how they influence student thinking about career options, choice of relevant CTE coursework and work-based learning options, and decisions about CTE concentration in available pathways and programs of study. A focus of this study is on understanding if these tools contribute to more equitable student outcomes.

With funding from the U.S. Institute of Education Sciences (grant number R305A200307), MDRC’s study will use a rigorous school-level random assignment research design, paired with a study of the implementation of technology-based advising tools and a cost-effectiveness analysis. In addition, MDRC is partnering with Communities In Schools, a nonprofit intermediary that works with over 2,300 schools across the country, and with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to identify potential schools and districts for participation.

Does Technology-Based Advising Promote Equity in Career and Technical Education?

Many schools are using technology-based tools to generate career recommendations and supplement the capabilities of their guidance departments. MDRC has partnered with two technology companies to test whether their career-advising software programs are viable tools for equitably supporting students as they identify and pursue future careers.

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Agenda, Scope, <br> & Goals

Agenda, Scope, and Goals

The CTE Advise study will use a school-level random assignment research design to determine the effectiveness of the tools within CTE programs. The evaluation includes an in-depth, multi-year examination of program implementation in high schools from districts across the country, an investigation of program costs, and an assessment of the impact of career advising tools on students.

The study will focus on several key research questions:

Impact questions:

Do the career advising tools have an effect on students’ persistence in CTE course-taking?
Do the career advising tools have effects on students’ own awareness of their career aptitudes and interests and their knowledge of career options and career pathways?
Do the career advising tools have effects on student engagement with school and on progression toward graduation?
Do the career advising tools promote greater equity in CTE programs?

Implementation questions:

What are the conditions under which CTE advising tools are being implemented?
To what extent are career advising tools — including training and support related to using and administering the tools — implemented as designed?

What is the nature, intensity, and duration of time spent using the tool and interpreting the results?
How different are the experiences offered to students in program and comparison schools?

Cost question:

How cost effective are technology-based career advising tools?

Does Technology-Based Advising Promote Equity in Career and Technical Education?

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Design, Sites, & <br> Data Sources

Design, Sites, and Data Sources

The study will use a three-arm random assignment design to assign schools to receive access to one of the two online advising packages or to a third group that doesn’t receive access during a two-year waiting period. Schools enrolled in the study have multiple CTE pathways available to students and will include schools from a variety of settings and contexts, including those from both small and large districts and from both rural and urban contexts.

The study team will use a combination of quantitative and qualitative data sources to answer the research questions associated with the impact, implementation, and cost studies. These include administrative data, student and staff surveys and interviews, and tool usage data.

Does Technology-Based Advising Promote Equity in Career and Technical Education?

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Funders & <br />Partners

Funders

Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education

Partners

Hobsons

YouScience

Communities In Schools

MDRC Staff

Rachel Rosen
Senior Associate, K-12 Education
Rosen joined MDRC in 2014 and is currently co-director of MDRC’s Center for Effective Career and Technical Education (CTE), which incubates new ideas, synthesizes findings and lessons learned, and disseminates this knowledge to policymakers, practitioners, and other researchers to ensure that expansion and scale-up of CTE programs are informed by a growing evidence base.

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Ivonne Garcia
Senior Associate, K-12 Education
Garcia currently serves as the project manager for the Higher Achievement Evaluation and for the implementation study of YouthForce NOLA.
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D. Crystal Byndloss
Director, Outreach, Diversity, and Inclusion
Byndloss holds dual roles at MDRC. She is the organization’s first director of outreach, diversity, and inclusion, working with MDRC’s leadership team, the human resources department, the Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Advocacy Council, and other organizational stakeholders.
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Shelley Rappaport
Research Associate, K-12 Education
Rappaport has worked as a qualitative researcher on a variety of projects since joining MDRC. She is currently directing the Networks for School Improvement study.
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Emma Alterman
Research Associate, K-12 Education
Alterman is an implementation, qualitative methods, and operations specialist whose expertise includes stakeholder interviews, qualitative analysis, and large-scale, multisite implementation data collection. Her work largely focuses on high school structures and supports and the transition to college and career.
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Hannah Dalporto
Research Associate, Economic Mobility, Housing, and Communities
Dalporto supports MDRC’s career and technical education projects, bringing her experience as both a qualitative researcher and operations specialist to that work.

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Hannah Power
Research Analyst, K-12 Education
Power works in the K-12 Education policy area as both a resource manager and research analyst. As a resource manager, Power develops, maintains, and monitors work plans, expenditures, and budgets for projects; communicates with partners and funders; and supports the development of new projects.
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