Evidence on Career Pathways Strategies: Highlights from a Scan of the Research

This brief, and its complementary matrix, update and expand a scan of career pathways research completed in February 2017 to share emerging new evidence with the field and support a forthcoming meta-analysis. This review covers 81 research projects that include 123 separate evaluations.

Research projects examined programs in the healthcare and manufacturing sectors most commonly, with information technology, business, and construction frequently appearing as well. Participants tended to be high school graduates and were as likely to be men as women. Women more often trained in healthcare, with the reverse true in manufacturing for men. Most evaluations with impact findings have looked at short- to medium-term outcomes.

Among these outcomes were the following: 1) most education outcomes were positive (83 percent), and 2) most of the employment and earnings outcomes were also positive (62 and 63 percent, respectively). Several ongoing evaluations will release long-term impacts in the next few years. These findings will be necessary for understanding the complete labor market impact of career pathways programs as early on, many participants remain in training or have only recently completed. Long-term findings will also shed light on the extent to which participants move up to higher levels of education and jobs over time.

(This report is eight pages long.)

The researchers identified the following findings:

• Since 2017, new evidence has emerged on career pathways strategies. In particular, many evaluations have recently shared impact findings. These results focus to a greater extent on career advancement than did earlier findings.
• Most career pathways research focused on program-level initiatives. A higher proportion of projects in the expanded scan involved manufacturing. They served higher proportions of men than those in the 2017 scan, reflecting the addition of more Trade Adjustment Assistance and Community College Career Training studies.
• Most research projects reviewed were complete; almost all studied how programs were implemented; most examined program impacts; some described costs; and a few analyzed system change.
• Of 96 impact evaluations reviewed, most found positive effects on education outcomes, confirming findings of the 2017 scan. More studies in the expanded scan included employment or earnings outcomes, and the majority found positive effects—a more favorable picture than seen in the earlier scan.

The researchers identified the following recommendations:

• The 96 impact evaluations in this scan present a starting point for the systematic meta-analysis, which will combine data from multiple studies to increase statistical power and allow for more definitive conclusions about the overall impact.
• This forthcoming meta-analysis will also provide insight on which program characteristics, or combinations of characteristics, are the strongest drivers of program impacts.

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2020
• Author(s): Sarna, M.; Adam, T.
• Funding Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Gary Gonzalez
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies