On March 20, 2024, the CTE Research Network held a final convening to present our research teams' findings to the field. In this Inside IES Research blog post, Tara Smith, a Network Lead member, Katherine Hughes, the Network director/PI, and Corinne Alfeld, the NCER program officer for the Network, reflect on the success of the convening and share thoughts about future directions in CTE research.

In his final blog post as director of the Institute of Education Sciences, Mark Schneider applauds the CTE Research Network's success in expanding the evidence base on the impact of CTE. The blog post highlights the Network's Convening on March 20, 2024, at which Schneider provided closing remarks.

Research tying work-based learning to student outcomes is limited due to the complex and varied nature of the experiences and the inherent difficulties in collecting systematic, high-quality data. This article, reprinted with permission from ACTE’s March 2024 issue of Techniques magazine, presents promising practices and innovations in work-based learning data collection and use in six school districts.

Cost analysis is a critical part of education research because it communicates what resources are needed for a particular program or intervention. In this Inside IES Research guest blog for CTE Month, two members of the CTE Research Network’s Cost Analysis Working Group discuss how costs associated with CTE programs may differ from those of standard education and how to measure those costs.

The Institute of Education Sciences has awarded a $3.75 million federal grant to the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to lead a new iteration of the Career and Technical Education Research Network. This new network, Extending the Reach of the Career and Technical Education (CTE) Research Network – CTE Research Network 2.0, will serve as a hub for CTE research, research training, leadership, and dissemination of findings.

In this latest entry in an ongoing blog series on the Sage Methodspace, network member Dawn A. Rowe discusses the importance of applying an equity-focused lens when reporting and disseminating research. The ideas presented align with the Network's Equity Framework for CTE Research, which illustrates how researchers can infuse an equity approach into social science research from start to finish.