Moving Beyond the GED: Low-Skilled Adult Transition to Occupational Pathways at Community Colleges Leading to Family-Supporting Careers (Research Synthesis)
Summary
This literature review is part of a broader study which focuses on the role of community colleges in providing education, specifically occupational training. Exemplary community college programs that employ innovative curriculum and instructional practices in order to help low-skilled adults attain a family sustainable wage were identified through this work. The study involved three universities and was part of the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education (NRCCTE) funded by the Office of Adult and Vocational Education, U.S. Department of Education.
This literature review is a first step in this work and summarizes what is currently known about low-skilled adults and programs available to them. The research reveals consistency across programs regarding strategies that appear to support student success, including integrated and nontraditional institutional structures and services, flexible policies to accommodate welfare reform requirements, focus on vocational training in high-demand occupations, group learning, intensive instruction, and case management to increase student retention. The study concludes that no single variable was statistically shown to determine program success in preparing participants for family-supporting occupations, but that creating pathways to employment for low-skilled adults may take a sustained and multifaceted effort from all the academic disciplines. The authors note that success in ABE transition programs is difficult to evaluate as it is a highly heterogeneous population with a large dropout rate, and there are no uniform information management systems or consistent instrumentation across programs to measure achievement. The research supports the need for improved and standardized tracking systems necessary to further establish statistically significant results.
Citation
Ernst, S., Kim, E., & Park, R.J. (2007). Moving Beyond the GED: Low-skilled Adult Transition to Occupational Pathways at Community Colleges Leading to Family-Supporting Careers (Research Synthesis). National Research Center for Career and Technical Education, University of Minnesota.
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