The Impact of Work-Based Learning on Students :: Impact Cause Effect Education Essays

The Impact of Work-Based Learning on Students Recent educational approaches that have career and technical education (CTE) components, such as Tech Prep, career academies, and High Schools That Work, have striven to integrate work experience with traditional academics; similarly, school-to-work (STW) by definition is composed of school-based learning, work-based learning (WBL), and bridging activities. How have these approaches affected their student participants both academically and personally? This Digest brings together research on the effects of approaches involving WBL on students' educational outcomes, attitudes, and short- and long-term employment prospects. Students' Educational Outcomes As a general rule, studies and evaluations have found positive associations between participation in approaches involving WBL and students' educational outcomes at both the secondary and postsecondary levels. Positive effects have been reported throughout the whole range of high school experience, from attendance to coursetaking to graduation, whereas too little time has passed for the longer-term effects in postsecondary education to be investigated. Secondary Typically, approaches involving WBL proceed from the premise that learning set in the real-world context of work not only makes academic learning more accessible to many students but also—even more fundamentally—increases their engagement in schooling. Such fundamental effects have been found over and over. For example, a 5-year study of 3.4 million Texas high school students (Brown 2000) found that Tech Prep students had higher attendance and on-time graduation rates and lower dropout rates than both non-Tech Prep CTE students and the general population of secondary students. Similar positive effects have been reported in reviews of studies on career academies (Stern et al. 2000) and--in spite of wide variation in the levels and details of implementation--STW programs (Hughes et al. 2001). Studies of youth apprenticeship programs also found increased attendance and decreased dropout rates (Hollenbeck 1996; Silverberg et al. 1996). Furthermore, positive effects were not limited to persistence. Brown (2000) reported that Texas Tech Prep students completed more academic courses than non-Tech Prep counterparts. Comparing 4,700 Tech Prep and non-Tech Prep participants from eight selected Tech Prep consortia, Bragg (2001) found that in four consortia, Tech Prep students were more likely than non-Tech Prep counterparts to begin high school below the level of Algebra I; but almost all had completed Algebra I by graduation. Higher grades or grade point averages (GPAs) were reported in studies of community-based STW programs for high-risk youth (Adler et al. 1996), Rhode Island Tech Prep programs (MacQueen 1996), and youth apprenticeship (Hollenbeck 1996; Silverberg 1996).