Texas, like many states, considers students to be "college, career, or military ready" if they earn an industry-based certification (IBC) in high school. While the expansion of opportunities for students to earn IBCs has been stimulated through state policy, limited research has systematically examined what factors influence students'…

Community colleges play a key role in driving talent development in the United States, producing workers with the kinds of training that employers need while enhancing economic mobility for students. There has been a push among policymakers at the federal and state levels to hold community colleges accountable for the employment outcomes of their…

Conferred by businesses, industry groups, and state certifying entities, industry-recognized credentials (IRCs) are intended to signal that students have mastered specific workplace knowledge and skills. This first-of-its-kind study assesses the impact of specific IRCs earned in high school on various employment and postsecondary outcomes for…

The focus of this study is to implement multiple assessment methods in order to comprehensively assess the impact of a Project Based Learning (PrBL) application in construction project management course. The assessment methods include various direct (objective) and indirect (subjective) evaluations methods. These methods included a pre and post…

More than a quarter of all U.S. students in grades K-12 are Latinx. Examining what Latinx texts are included in classroom literature anthologies is essential to ensuring cultural representativeness of the increasing Latinx student population, especially in states such as Texas and California, whose Hispanic student population is more than 40…

As the construction industry advances technologically, it becomes imperative to introduce the respective information technology tools to present-day curriculum. This research study was conducted to identify any significant differences in student performance contributed by using an information technology tool, specifically the Apple® iPad® tablet.…

Educational approaches in structural engineering have focused on classical methods for solving problems with manual calculations through assignments, quizzes, and exams. The use of computational software to apply the learned knowledge has been ignored for decades. This paper describes an educational approach to tackle the lack of applicable…

In late 2020, Texas community and technical colleges participated in a national study of community college workforce education. Texas was one of 14 states where education authorities volunteered to encourage colleges to respond early enough in 2020 to receive preliminary statewide results in January 2021. This brief compares Texas to the 14 states…

The combination of two technological tools, Microsoft Excel and ArcGIS, has proved powerful in organizing, categorizing, and expressing data visually in meaningful ways. The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has found its way into historical research due to its interdisciplinary nature and usefulness. The goal of this paper is not to…

Career and Technical Education (CTE) at Austin Independent School District (AISD) aims to provide scholars with academic knowledge and technical skills needed to gain entry to high-demand, high-skill, and high-wage industries. This report summarizes results of the CTE Program Analysis Scorecard for the 2019-2020 school year. The CTE Program…

This case study takes place in a Midwestern, politically conservative rural community shortly after a highly contested presidential election. Like other communities, Paisano has experienced demographic change in a relatively short time. Meat processing plants and construction jobs proliferate, attracting migrant workers. One day, secondary school…

As economic competition becomes more global and knowledge-based, US states have independently pursued initiatives in research and development (R&D) and science and technology (S&T). Policy efforts often entwine government, universities, and industry, aiming to stimulate socially optimal levels of innovation and economic growth.…

The Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF) is committed to aligning education and the workforce to create the talent and capacity for innovation necessary to keep regions, states, and the nation economically competitive. As part of that work, BHEF strives to analyze the factors that contribute to effective business and higher education…

Statistics is a critical tool for robustness analysis, measurement system error analysis, test data analysis, probabilistic risk assessment, and many other fields in the engineering world. Traditionally, however, statistics is not extensively used in undergraduate engineering technology (ET) programs, resulting in a major disconnect from industry…

This qualitative research study utilized the grounded theory tradition to examine organizational structures and processes in a purposefully selected sample of American universities that have established and maintained partnerships with industry. Institutional leaders from the corporate relations offices from fifteen of the top research…