Senate Bill 22-192, titled Opportunities for Credential Attainment called on the Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) to work collaboratively with other state agencies, institutions of higher education (IHEs), employers and other stakeholders to build 10 stackable credential pathways across five high-value, high-demand industries between…

The National Academies Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education hosted a hybrid public workshop in March 2024 to consider the use of admissions strategies for ensuring a sustainable, high-quality workforce that is adequately staffed, reflects the population being served, and is equitably distributed. Speakers explored the…

Career technical education (CTE) has evolved markedly over the past century to provide a viable avenue for high school students who may seek an alternative and successful academic path that leads to a well-paid future career in the workforce. Recent studies have found that Career and Technology Education can lower dropout rates among high school…

The labor-market payoff to workers with associate degrees in healthcare and STEM occupations is very high in Massachusetts. We examine whether this induced a growing proportion of students in MA community colleges (MACCs) to earn an associate degree (AD) in one of these fields. We do this by using multinomial logit analysis to compare trends…

Purpose: The objective of this study was to determine if exposure to a short-term ultrasound basic biology and anatomy course can promote interest in health careers and other science-related endeavors among DHH students. Design/methodology/approach: This was a single-site, prospective observational study of DHH high school students at a Southern…

Using achievement goal theory and positive youth development frameworks, this exploratory study reports findings of an innovative career exploration experience designed for high school student members of a health science academy (HSA). Students interested in healthcare careers (n = 9) completed two different interaction sessions with adolescents…

The dearth of Latinx and African American (AA) professionals in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields is most concerning. AA and Latinx workers in the labor market hold an 11% and 17% share of US workers, respectively. However, these groups only contribute 9% and 8%, respectively, of STEM professionals and 4.8 and 6% of…

SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) has proliferated across the United States, and in the process, it has disrupted all sense of normalcy. Because adolescents are in a critical period for growth and development, youth are particularly susceptible to negative impacts of disruption from COVID-19. Therefore, sustaining youth development programs is essential to…

Digital inclusion is an opportunity to fill the digital divide, the inequity preventing access to technological resources which support participation in online learning. Specific to financially disadvantaged students, this interpretive qualitative study examines how factors of digital inclusion influence one's decision to pursue an online health…

The COVID-19 pandemic produced a dramatic nationwide shift in K-12 education from in-person classroom learning to remote online learning. This shift left teachers and parents facing the challenge of finding engaging online resources to motivate students to become deeply involved in science learning. The pandemic also left educators and…

Although the recent annual growth rate in the U.S. paramedical field has been 4%, Latino and African American men have been significantly underrepresented in the field compared to their proportion in the U.S. population at large. This problem threatens both the quality and quantity of available emergency health care. The purpose of this study was…

The authors of this report aim to understand the health of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and labor market in the Appalachia region -- defined as the intersection of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia -- with a focus on the mining and extraction industry. This report is the third in a three-part series.…

Drawing on Eccles' expectancy-value model of achievement-related choices, we examined the personal aptitudes and motivational beliefs at 12th grade that move individuals toward or away from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupations at age 29. In the first set of analyses, occupational and lifestyle values, math ability…

Enhancing school-to-work transitions for youth is a policy focus of secondary schools in most OECD countries. This paper examines one organisation's efforts to encourage high school youth to consider careers in health care by providing them with summer internship opportunities. We adopt an embedded context approach to examine the effects on…

This second of five annual reports focuses on employment and wages in energy and advanced manufacturing-related industries and on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education indicators in the Appalachia Partnership Initiative (API) region, comprising twenty-seven counties in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Together,…