A Research Collaborative to Build Employability Skills for STEM Technology Fields

技术人员工作场所的变化增加了对具有适应性、协作、沟通、工作场所多样性、终身学习和理解业务使命技能的员工的需求。该项目计划通过开发和测试培养学生就业技能的专业发展模式来满足这一需求。课程的重点将放在参加新的先进制造技术课程/职业道路的学生身上，这些课程将为他们成为先进制造技术人员做好准备。研究团队将采用研究-实践-伙伴关系来支持这些学生的就业技能发展。据估计，该项目将直接为至少50名在新项目中攻读副学士学位的学生、6名项目教师和25名在高等教育和中等技术人员项目中额外的教师提供服务。该项目的研究活动将调查：(1)这种培养就业技能的方法的有效性；(2)快速开发和测试新课程的可行性；(3)短期就业技能发展经验与长期多重发展经验的有效性比较。研究人员-从业人员-伙伴关系方法是为了改善K-12水平的研究成果在实践中的流动和实施。这种方法将适用于专上技术人员教育。通过一系列的研究方法和评估，这项工作将同时研究就业技能的教与学，同时将技术教育者作为共同设计师、开发人员和知识建设者。与研究人员-从业人员-伙伴关系方法一致，验证评估的过程将识别和定义就业技能结构，并确定教学策略，以确保评估与实践保持一致。研究小组将使用基础理论和“计划-执行-研究-行动”方法，修改后用于研究人员-从业人员-伙伴关系的背景下，以适应、测试和完善就业技能工具、资源和方法。该项目由先进技术教育计划资助，该计划侧重于为推动国家经济的先进技术领域培养技术人员。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Changes in the technician workplace are increasing the demand for employees who have skills in adaptability, collaboration, communication, workplace diversity, lifelong learning, and understanding the business mission. This project plans to address this need by developing and testing a professional development model that fosters students’ employability skills. The focus will be on students who are enrolled in a new Advanced Manufacturing Technology program/career pathway that will prepare them for careers as advanced manufacturing technicians. The research team will adapt the researcher-practitioner-partnership to support the development of these students’ employability skills. The project is estimated to directly serve at least fifty students pursuing associate degrees in the new program, six program faculty, and 25 additional faculty in both postsecondary and secondary technician programs. The project's research activities will investigate: (1) the effectiveness of this approach to developing employability skills; (2) the feasibility of rapid development and testing of new curricula; and, (3) the effectiveness of short-term employability skills development experiences compared to multiple development experiences over time.The researcher-practitioner-partnership method was developed to improve the flow and implementation of research findings into practice at the K-12 level. This method will be adapted for use in post-secondary technician education. Using a set of research methods and assessments, this effort will study simultaneously the teaching and learning of employability skills while engaging technician educators as co-designers, developers, and knowledge builders. In alignment with the researcher-practitioner-partnership method, the process to validate assessments will identify and define employability skills constructs and identify instructional strategies to ensure alignment of assessments to practice. The research team will use grounded theory and the “plan-do-study-act” approach modified for use in the researcher-practitioner-partnership context to adapt, test, and refine employability skills tools, resources, and methods. This project is funded by the Advanced Technological Education program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the nation's economy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.