Impacts of Career-Focused Advising

• In Event: Advising Around Postsecondary Pathways

Abstract

Objectives. The current study was designed to address the following two research questions:
1. How does a career coach influence school-level patterns in students’ CTE participation, postsecondary plans, and college enrollment?
2. How do students’ interactions with a career coach affect their participation and success in dual enrollment CTE courses and enrollment at two-year postsecondary institutions?
Perspectives. Student advising can impact how students navigate school and their postsecondary pathways and it can be especially important for reducing equity gaps among groups with less information about their educational options (Lareau, 2011; Mulhern, 2023; Sattin-Bajaj et al., 2018). However, most research focuses on academic advising and much less is known about career-focused advising. Recent policies and programs have been expanding career-focused advising in high schools, so it is important to understand how students engage with it and its impacts on their trajectories.
Methods and Data Sources. We examine career-focused advising in the context of North Carolina’s career coaching program. First, we use an event study design to examine RQ1. The first coaches arrived in the 2015-16 school year, so we examine patterns from the 2011-12 to 2020-21 school years. Second, we use a propensity score weighting approach to measure how meeting with a career coach is linked to student outcomes, using data from the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years. For both approaches, we use administrative education records from North Carolina spanning K-12 through postsecondary education, including National Student Clearinghouse records on nationwide college enrollment and a statewide survey on students’ intentions after high school.
Results. We find that when a school receives a career coach, participation rates increase in the CTE dual enrollment pathway (Table 1). However, receiving a career coach did not substantially change the number of CTE courses taken via dual enrollment or traditional high school courses. We also find suggestive evidence that receiving a coach increased the share of students who intended to enter employment after high school while decreasing the share of students who attended a four-year college. Receiving a coach did not significantly impact two-year college enrollments.
Next, we look specifically at students who met with the career coaches, typically during one-on-one meetings. Students who were already participating in dual enrollment prior to meeting with a coach went on to take and pass more dual enrollment CTE courses (Table 2). In addition, these students who take more dual enrollment CTE courses because of the coaches are then more likely to enroll at two-year postsecondary institutions after high school than their peers. We also find that meeting with a coach is associated with a reduction in intentions to enroll at four-year colleges, but the impact on actual enrollments is not statistically significant.
Significance. These results suggest that career advising can have important impacts. However, there were notable inequities in who met with coaches and where coaches were placed. For instance, students who were economically disadvantaged, male or lower achieving were less likely to meet with the coaches than their peers. Thus, expanding access to this type of coaching is important.

Authors

• Christine Mulhern, RAND

• Brian M. Phillips, RAND Corporation