SBIR Phase I: Hats & Ladders: A Mobile Platform to Foster Career Self-Efficacy in Middle and High School Learners

SBIR第一阶段项目通过将青年与项目和基于工作的学习经验联系起来，帮助他们应用和扩展课堂学习，满足了国家对更强职业准备的需求。这些经验将提高他们的职业自我效能和技能，并帮助他们发展对职业和工作环境的批判性理解，在最重要的年龄？在他们变得脱节并可能与学校和工作脱节之前。这种对职业准备的投资还减少了与目前脱离社会和边缘化的数百万青年有关的社会成本。在美国，这种脱节的成本高得惊人;一项研究估计，纳税人每年为解决其直接负面影响而付出的成本为268亿美元。该项目的成功和广泛采用将增加美国各行业雇主的合格申请人数量，特别是在STEM领域，由于合格候选人的短缺，有200万到300万个职位空缺。通过帮助年轻人参与有意义的与职业相关的学习体验，该项目将产生更广泛的经济影响，增加他们留在学校的可能性，找到好的就业机会，并为国家的长期活力做出贡献。该项目将引人注目的以年轻人为中心的视觉和交互设计与开放劳动力数据分析，个人用户数据从个人和聚合使用，和经过实验测试的职业发展清单。用户探索一系列的职业途径和职业准备能力，以及专有和第三方职业教育内容和计划的建议。该项目包括一个跨平台应用程序，允许用户建立个人资料，探索STEM和其他感兴趣的行业，并了解关键职业准备实践的相关性。 通过使用产生的数据，简单的评估和自我反思，用户的个人资料得到加强，更具体的职业可以通过层次化的在线和现实世界的活动来探索。该项目还包括一个基于网络的报告仪表板，用于跟踪使用和性能数据。该项目将解决青年用户确定有意义的项目和基于工作的活动的技术障碍，以及这些活动的公共和私人提供者接触更多青年并提高其方案的影响力。研究团队将设计调查，进行可用性测试和分析使用数据，以收集证据，对影响标准。这些数据将为迭代设计过程提供信息，以改善用户体验、算法调整和功能改进。

This SBIR Phase I project serves a national need for stronger career readiness by connecting youth to project- and work-based learning experiences that will help them to apply and extend classroom learning. These experiences will increase their career self-efficacy and skills, and help them to develop a critical understanding of careers and the work environment, at an age when it matters the most?before they become disengaged and potentially disconnected from school and work. This investment in career readiness also reduces the societal costs associated with millions of youth that are currently disengaged and marginalized. The cost of this disconnection in the United States is staggeringly high; one study estimates the annual cost to taxpayers for addressing its direct negative effects to be $26.8 billion. Successful and widespread adoption of this project will increase the pool of qualified applicants for employers in industries across the U.S., especially in STEM fields for which there are two to three million unfilled positions due to a shortfall in qualified candidates. By helping youth to engage in meaningful career-related learning experiences this project will have the broader economic impact of increasing their likelihood to stay in school, find good employment, and contribute to the country's vitality over the long-term.The project combines compelling youth-centered visual and interactive design with analysis of open labor data, personal user data from individual and aggregate usage, and empirically-tested career development inventories. Users explore a range of career pathways and career readiness competencies, as well as recommendations for both proprietary and third party career education content and programs. The project consists of a cross-platform app that allows users to build a profile, explore STEM and other industries of interest, and gain understanding of the relevancy of key career readiness practices. Through data generated by usage, simple assessments and self-reflections, the user profile is strengthened and more specific careers can be explored through leveled online and real-world activities. The project also includes a web-based reporting dashboard that tracks usage and performance data. The project will address the technical hurdles for both the young user to identify meaningful project and work-based activities, and for public and private providers of such activities to reach more youth and improve the impact of their programs. The research team will design surveys, conduct usability tests and analyze usage data to gather evidence against impact criteria. These data will inform an iterative design process for improved user-experience, algorithm adjustments and feature improvements.