This report from the Career and Technical Education (CTE) Research Network Lead team provides final results from an evaluability assessment of CTE programs that feasibly could be evaluated using a rigorous experimental design. Evaluability assessments (also called feasibility studies) are used in education and other fields, such as international development and health care, and seek to determine whether a program or activity can be reliably evaluated.

The report provides an overview of CTE and a brief summary of the existing research literature, a description of the method and criteria used to identify CTE sites for further study as well as the characteristics of each site, and a discussion of the factors that can facilitate or hinder causal research in CTE. Finally, the report describes the four CTE programs that the team identified as most immediately viable for causal research. The Institute of Education Sciences has funded evaluations of two of these programs: Delaware Pathways and Virtual Enterprises.

See also a companion infographic that highlights the key findings from the report and a follow-up report that explores how CTE programs interviewed as part of the evaluability assessment were affected during the COVID-19 pandemic.