Michael Gottfried of UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School, along with Daniel Klasik of George Washington University, are co-PIs of a just-awarded Institute of Educational Sciences (IES) grant “Does Applied STEM CTE Strengthen the College and Career Pipeline for Low-Income High School Students?” The two-year project is funded at $344,940.
Given the growth of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) jobs in the economy, it is important to identify and reduce disparities in access to STEM courses in high school. Unlike traditional academic STEM courses (e.g., math, physics) that focus on abstract, theoretical problems, applied STEM career technical education (AS-CTE) courses (e.g., computer/information sciences, engineering technologies) are focused on real-world problems and hands-on application. For low-income students—a population of students who are often disengaged from school and have few resources for upward mobility—taking AS-CTE courses may increase engagement and likelihood of pursuing STEM. Gottfried and Klasik’s project will explore whether and how AS-CTE coursetaking can help prepare low-income students for college, and for careers in STEM or with STEM applications.
Using two nationally-representative datasets, the researchers will examine the relationships between AS-CTE coursetaking in high school and post-high school STEM outcomes, and (2) determine whether these relationships differ by income level. They will estimate the statistical models with one dataset, the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, and validate these models using the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009. Importantly, the two cohorts represented by the two datasets span a major change in CTE legislation in 2006; thus, there may also be differences across cohorts in coursetaking and outcomes.
The Institute of Education Sciences is the statistics, research, and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Education. Its mission is to provide scientific evidence on which to ground education practice and policy and to share this information in formats that are useful and accessible to educators, parents, policymakers, researchers, and the public.
Michael Gottfried is Associate Professor in the Department of Education. His research focuses on absenteeism, schooling context, and STEM with an interest in disabilities running through all of these areas. He has served as PI on grants focusing on schooling context and outcomes specifically for elementary school students (NSF, AERA/NSF, NIH/NICHD R03, Foundation for Child Development, Stuart Foundation, Spencer Foundation). He has published work in the American Educational Research Journal, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Teachers College Record, Education Finance and Policy, American Journal of Education, Elementary School Journal, among others. In 2016, he released a co-edited book on educational policy with Harvard Education Press. Gottfried is on the Editorial Board of American Educational Research Journal and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.