What Works for Adult Learners: Lessons from Career Pathway Evaluations

A limited but growing body of rigorous evaluation studies examines how career pathways influence student success. Based on experimental or quasi-experimental studies, this growing body of results shows that career pathway participants are employed and retained in employment at higher rates and attain higher wages and annual earnings than students with similar characteristics who enroll in training that does not use a career pathway approach. They also earn entry-level credentials and gain basic skills at higher rates than the comparison group. The results make a case for scaling career pathways to reach many more adult learners. Persuasive evidence shows that well-designed career pathways can improve academic, employment, and income outcomes for adults. Descriptive Research Simple Descriptive What the experts say This is a well-written and concise review of rigorous research in the adult education career pathway field. The findings and recommendations are positive, and in general, validate existing best practice knowledge/research about successful implementation of career pathway programming. Together they provide a big picture, systems change framework for adult education stakeholders in their pathways implementation and scaling considerations. The authors provide a unique and simplified model for understanding career pathway outcomes. These outcomes are grouped into three categories: Pathway Entry, Integrated Training, and Career Progression. For each of the outcome areas, results are synthesized from career pathway studies into results linked to pathway implementation and results linked to impact on the participants. Adult educators will find these implementation and impact results enlightening as there are many positive results noted as well as some results that show null or negative impacts of career pathway implementation. Adult educators and policy makers will find the recommendations with regard to practice and policy useful as these recommendations are evidence-based and flow logically from the synthesis of multiple, credible career pathway studies/evaluations. Although the study recommendations are practical and insightful, they lack embellishment with regard to a description or link to specific best practices (i.e., concrete examples) that could give the reader insight into actualizing the recommendations. Resource Notice This site includes links to information created by other public and private organizations. These links are provided for the user’s convenience. The U.S. Department of Education does not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of this non-ED information. The inclusion of these links is not intended to reflect their importance, nor is it intended to endorse views expressed, or products or services offered, on these non-ED sites. Please note that privacy policies on non-ED sites may differ from ED’s privacy policy. When you visit lincs.ed.gov, no personal information is collected unless you choose to provide that information to us. We do not give, share, sell, or transfer any personal information to a third party. We recommend that you read the privacy policy of non-ED websites that you visit. We invite you to read our privacy policy.