Optimizing Technical Education Pathways: Does Dual-Credit Course Completion Predict Students’ College and Labor Market Success?

Exploring the outcomes of standards-based concurrent enrollment and Advanced Placement in Arkansas

“…However, these results show that students who participated CE courses that were not NACEPdefined (e.g., located on a college campus or taught by a college instructor) were slightly less likely to enroll in an Arkansas college within the first year. This finding aligns with Phelps and Chan (2016) that shows better educational outcomes for CE courses taught on the high school campus compared to college campus. Collectively, these results suggest that the efforts to expand and encourage accelerated programs (CE and AP) may have positive benefits in terms of students' odds of college enrollment and success.…”

“…For example , Lochmiller, Sugimoto, Muller, Mosier, andWilliamson (2016) andD'Amico, Morgan, Robertson, andRivers (2013) found that student outcomes were better for CE courses delivered on college campuses compared to courses delivered on high school campuses. However, Phelps and Chan (2016) found that students in courses taught on high school campuses by a career and technical education instructor had better college and employment outcomes than students in courses taught on the college campus. Dixon and Slate (2014) also examined differences by course location and found mixed results based on the type of course.…”

“…For example, studies that document the positive relationship between CE and postsecondary success (e.g., Allen & Dadgar, 2012;An, 2013a;Karp et al;Speroni, 2011;Struhl & Vargas, 2012;Swanson, 2008;Taylor, 2015) that use state or national datasets often fail to examine differences in outcomes based on the nature of the CE experience or environment (e.g., instructor type or location). Only a small number of studies have examined differences in CE outcomes by course location and instructor type, and these studies lead to mixed results (e.g., D'Amico et al, 2013;Dixon & Slate, 2014;Lochmiller et al, 2016;Phelps & Chan, 2016). Further, two of these studies use only descriptive statistics and they do not account for factors other than course location and instructor type that might influence student outcomes.…”

The Influence of Earning an Industry Certification in High School on Going to College: The Florida CAPE Act

“…Once in community colleges, students who had participated in a CTE program during high school had higher odds of earning an associate degree than community college students who had taken a general education program (Dietrich, Lichtenberger & Kamalludeen, 2016). In particular, high school students who had taken dual credit CTE courses in high school had higher rates of continued enrollment and degree attainment in community college (Phelps & Chan, 2016). Similarly, students attending within-school career academies had higher high school graduation rates and, for boys, higher rates of postsecondary educational enrollment than those who did not attend the CTE program (Hemelt et al, 2019).…”

Utilizing NCES Survey Data for the Study of Postsecondary Pathways and Success: Challenges and Future Directions

“…Despite the constant intersection between the two types of courses, they may affect students’ postsecondary academic pathway and success in different ways: CTE exposes students to different areas of careers and may help students choose an area of study, while dual enrollment expedites the progress of postsecondary education, provided that the credits are successfully transferred. Further information about the course instructor (for example, high school teacher or college faculty), location where students took the course (for example, on high school or college campus), and whether the credit was successfully transferred will greatly help researchers understand the lasting effect of CTE and dual enrollment on college success (Phelps & Chan, ). Since this information is not available in the ELS transcript data currently, NCES should consider including relevant indicators in the future to grant researchers more flexibility to create nuanced variables that more accurately depict students’ academic pipeline.…”