Despite decades of research, until recently little has been known about the causal effects of career and technical education (CTE) on student outcomes. To address this need, the CTE Research Network conducted a systematic review of the research literature spanning the past 20 years. The results show many positive impacts of CTE on high school student outcomes, providing great news for the field.
CTE
What We Know About the Impact of Career and Technical Education: A Systematic Review of the Research
CTE
Winter 2024 Webinar Series: New Evidence on the Impacts of Secondary Career and Technical Education
This three-part webinar series presents new evidence on the impacts of secondary CTE. Join us as we showcase the latest findings from the CTE Research Network. Don’t miss these free events.
This infographic highlights key findings from a network study of North Carolina's Career & College Promise CTE dual enrollment pathway. The study, led by a team at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, found positive effects for students in the CTE dual enrollment pathway, particularly for groups historically underrepresented in postsecondary education.
This non-experimental, quantitative study used a correlational research design to determine whether a significant, positive relationship existed between students' completion of a series of CTE courses and earning industry-recognized credentials and feeling a sense of self-efficacy toward employment pursuits.
This Urban Institute research report focuses on "new majority" students who enroll in short-term CTE programs to help them overcome barriers and improve their pathways to economic mobility. Using data from the College Scorecard, the report examines CTE programs overall and the six fields of study with the most CTE programs to explore the outcomes of debt, earnings two years after graduation, debt burden (debt as a share of earnings), and how each outcome was shaped by program, institution, and labor market characteristics.
Using school fixed effects models, this CALDER study examined the extent to which students obtained postsecondary credentials in the CTE fields of focus they chose in high school. Findings indicate that focusing on a particular CTE field in high school is associated with an increased probability of enrolling in and obtaining a postsecondary credential in that field.
This paper focuses on the need to provide systems of support for multilingual students in career and technical education (CTE) programs. It describes an ongoing, equity-focused professional development initiative undertaken by a large regional CTE center to address the needs of emergent bilingual and advance equity in CTE programs. The program foregrounded professional development opportunities for teachers and administrators to ensure that equity is pursued on a systemic level.
This paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) presents the first evidence of how students make career technical education (CTE) course-taking decisions. The authors examine disparities in CTE access and participation by gender, race, and income for Michigan high school students and use a simple discrete choice model to decompose participation gaps between supply (access) and demand (preferences).