This paper addresses the composite question of whether it is better in vocational education to allow students to design their own models and guide them while doing so, or to provide them with ready-made models. To answer this question we set up a design experiment in which students were asked to work on real-life assignments, guided by teachers in…

The Concurrent Courses Initiative (CCI), funded by The James Irvine Foundation from 2008 until 2011, comprised eight secondary/postsecondary partnerships across California that offered dual enrollment programs with supplemental student supports. The goal of the CCI was to expand access to supportive, career-focused dual enrollment for students…

A tuition-free, vocational, English as a second language (ESL) program offered at a large community college suffers from high attrition as well as student dissatisfaction with curriculum. The purpose of this quasi-experimental, longitudinal study was to assess the effectiveness of a specific ESL curriculum supplement as an intervention to…

The National Job Corps Study was conducted in 1994-1996 to provide a thorough and rigorous assessment of the impacts of the Job Corps on key participant outcomes. To ensure that the study was well implemented, a study team from Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., (MPR) investigated outcome and admission (OA) procedures in each Job Corps region and…