The Path to College and Career: Exploring the Role of High School Engineering Courses for Students with Learning Disabilities

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“This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2)” As demand for a capable workforce in engineering continues to grow, there is also a concerning pattern of decline in the proportion of students pursuing engineering fields. Part of this decline is attributed to a lack of students from under-represented backgrounds – such as those with learning disabilities – taking engineering courses in high school. Therefore, to reduce these disparities, pursuit and persistence in engineering courses must be sustained such that all students can have the potential to be set-up for success in these highly-rewarding fields. And more so, any disparity in the pursuit of and persistence in engineering courses in high school will only reinforce preexisting educational stratification in the nation. To address this, we propose that engineering career and technical education (E-CTE) may serve as one potential educational pathway to better align opportunities in the engineering pipeline and specifically for students with learning disabilities. Thus, understanding if E-CTE coursetaking patterns can support engineering-related pursuits is crucial to determining both STEM and disability policy in order to improve access to and success in engineering fields. And if positive links are observed between E-CTE coursetaking and long-term E-CTE pursuits, this has implications for schooling practice as well – e.g., schools’ E-CTE offerings, and access to E-CTE for students with learning disabilities. Yet, prior to this study, these policy conclusions remain speculative – although studies have examined the importance of traditional STEM courses for college and labor market outcomes of students with learning disabilities, none have looked at whether specific E-CTE coursework can be successful in preparing students with learning disabilities to pursue and persist in engineering fields as they transition from high school to college and careers. At present, there is currently not enough research in the area of the pipeline effects of taking E-CTE courses, particularly for students with learning disabilities, to come to any definite conclusions in regard to policy or practice.Hence, our project will fill this important void and will be the first to document the landscape of these experiences for students with learning disabilities in E-CTE and along the engineering pathway. Using the most recently available, nationally representative data from the High School Longitudinal Study, this project will be the first to evaluate the efficacy of E-CTE courses and to understand how these courses might link to the transition from high school into engineering fields in college as well as career aspirations with an emphasis on potential benefits for students with learning disabilities. Specifically, the project will identify which E-CTE courses students with learning disabilities are taking, how E-CTE coursework may encourage persistence along the engineering pipeline (e.g., STEM attitudes, college enrollment, earning an engineering credential), and the link between E-CTE participation and engineering-related career aspirations. Using multi-level modeling methods to identify both individual and school contextual influences, as well as propensity score matching techniques to account for observable differences in E-CTE participants, this project will produce results that will assist policymakers and educators in facilitating access to and promoting interest in engineering for students with learning disabilities in an effort to prepare them for later opportunities in these engineering fields. Given the hands-on, experiential nature of E-CTE coursework (and CTE coursework in general), we anticipate that E-CTE participation will be particularly beneficial for students with learning disabilities, a group that has traditionally been marginalized in engineering fields. Ultimately, E-CTE coursetaking may be one avenue to improve reduce the inequities in STEM participation for students with learning disabilities and encourage interest and persistence in engineering fields.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.