Study Details | Pathways to Work

24976.04-Study of Acceleratin

Study quality: Low

Low

Reason for the rating: This study received a low study quality rating because it is a quasi-experimental design that does not demonstrate that the intervention and comparison groups were sufficiently similar before the intervention.

Intervention: Accelerating Opportunity (AO)

Population and employment barriers:

Educational attainment (Less than a high school diploma or equivalent)

Services provided:

Integrated education and training, Job placement, Job search assistance

Setting: Tested in multiple settings

Study design

Design:

Quasi-experimental design

Study group formation:

The intervention group for this study includes English-speaking people with postsecondary and unemployment insurance data who enrolled in an AO initiative program. To be eligible to participate in AO, people had to score at the 6th- to 12th-grade level on a math, reading, or writing test. Participants were recruited from those in adult, developmental, and career and technical education (CTE) education programs in the colleges where AO initiative programs were offered. The authors used propensity score analysis to select a comparison group from among people enrolled in other adult education, developmental education, and CTE courses at the colleges offering services to the intervention group. The propensity score was estimated based on the local area unemployment rate, semester of enrollment, educational background, age, gender, race and ethnicity, family structure, occupational area of study, test scores before entry, employment history, earnings history, and the predicted probability of college enrollment (for adult education students only). Because people had follow-up data for different time horizons, a separate propensity score matching procedure was performed for each follow-up point.

Time period of study:

People enrolled in the program from 2012 to 2014 and were followed until early 2016.

Pathways only reports results from studies with a study quality rating of high or moderate.

Sample characteristics

Age

Mean age

26 years

Sex

Female	64%
Male	36%

Participant race and ethnicity

Black or African American	50%
White, not Hispanic	37%
Hispanic or Latino of any race	3%
Unknown, not reported, or other	6%

The race and ethnicity categories may sum to more than 100 percent if the authors reported race and ethnicity separately; in these cases, we report the category White, rather than White, not Hispanic.

Participant employment and public benefit status

Had low incomes

100%

Participant education

Had a high school diploma or GED	14%
Did not have a high school diploma or GED	86%

Intervention implementation

Implementing organization:

Jobs for the Future implemented the AO initiative with the National Council for Workforce Education, the National College Transition Network, and the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges in Washington State. Educational services were provided at local colleges. Nine of the 13 community and technical colleges in Louisiana participated in the AO initiative.

Intervention services:

People in the intervention group received services through the AO initiative. The AO initiative targeted people with low skills and low income who were enrolled in adult education. AO emphasized a career pathways approach to CTE, providing sequenced courses in high-demand fields. AO pathways included about 12 academic credits, led to one or more credentials, and were delivered using team teaching of basic skills and CTE and contextualized instruction. Career pathways were developed in partnership with local workforce agencies and employers to ensure their applicability. The program also provided academic and social supports to students, such as tutoring or transportation assistance.

Mandatory services:

None.

Comparison services:

The comparison group included adult education, developmental education, and CTE students. All were enrolled in a for-credit course at a college with an AO initiative program but were not enrolled in the program itself during the study period.

Study publications

Anderson, Theresa, Daniel Kuehn, Lauren Eyster, Burt S. Barnow, and Robert I. Lerman (2017). New evidence on integrated career pathways: Final impact report for accelerating opportunity, Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Available at https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/91436/ao_final_impacts.pdf.

Anderson, Theresa, Lauren Eyster, Robert I. Lerman, Carol Clymer, Maureen Conway, and Marcela Montes (2014). The first year of accelerating opportunity: Implementation findings from the states and colleges, Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Available at https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED559305.pdf.

Anderson, Theresa, Lauren Eyster, Robert I. Lerman, Carolyn T. O'Brien, Maureen Conway, Ranita Jain, and Marcela Montes (2015). The second year of accelerating opportunity: Implementation findings from the states and colleges, Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Available at https://www.urban.org/research/publication/second-year-accelerating-opportunity-implementation-findings-states-and-colleges.

Anderson, Theresa, Lauren Eyster, Robert I. Lerman, Maureen Conway, Ranita Jain, and Marcela Montes (2016). Implementation of accelerating opportunity: Lessons for the field, Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Available at https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/80626/2000791-implementation-of-accelerating-opportunity-lessons-for-the-field.pdf.

Eyster, Lauren, Theresa Anderson, Robert I. Lerman, Daniel Kuehn, Burt S. Barnow, Maureen Conway, Ranita Jain, and Marcela Montes (2018). Findings from the accelerating opportunity evaluation: Building the evidence on integrated career pathways, Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Available at https://www.urban.org/research/publication/findings-accelerating-opportunity-evaluation.

Kuehn, Daniel, Theresa Anderson, Robert I. Lerman, Lauren Eyster, Burt S. Barnow, and Amanda Briggs (2017). A cost-benefit analysis of accelerating opportunity, Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Available at https://www.urban.org/research/publication/cost-benefit-analysis-accelerating-opportunity.

Spaulding, Shayne, and Ananda Martin-Caughey (2015). Accelerating opportunity: A portrait of students and their program experiences from the 2014 student survey, Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Available at https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/43721/2000133-accelerating-opportunity_1.pdf.

View the glossary for more information about these and other terms used on this page.

The Pathways Clearinghouse refers to interventions by the names used in study reports or manuscripts. Some intervention names may use language that is not consistent with our style guide, preferences, or the terminology we use to describe populations.

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Study of Accelerating Opportunity (AO)—Louisiana