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以项目和工作为基础的学习经历联系起来，帮助他们应用和扩展课堂学习，满足了国家对更强的职业准备的需要。这些经历将提高他们的职业自我效能感和技能，并帮助他们在职业和工作环境最重要的年龄--在他们变得与学校和工作脱节之前--发展对职业和工作环境的批判性理解。这项对职业准备的投资还减少了与数百万目前脱离工作和被边缘化的青年有关的社会成本。在美国，这种断网的代价高得惊人；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代价高达268亿美元。该项目的成功和广泛采用将增加美国各地行业雇主的合格申请者库，特别是在STEM领域，由于合格候选人的短缺，这些领域有200万到300万个空缺职位。通过帮助年轻人参与有意义的职业相关学习体验，该项目将产生更广泛的经济影响，增加他们留在学校、找到好工作的可能性，并从长远来看为国家的活力做出贡献。该项目结合了引人注目的以年轻人为中心的视觉和交互设计，以及对开放劳动力数据、个人和总体使用情况的个人用户数据的分析，以及经验证的职业发展清单。用户探索一系列职业道路和职业准备能力，以及对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的应用程序，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。通过使用情况、简单评估和自我反省产生的数据，用户概况得到加强，并可以通过平台化的在线和现实世界活动探索更具体的职业。该项目还包括一个基于Web的报告仪表板，用于跟踪使用情况和性能数据。该项目将解决年轻用户确定有意义的项目和以工作为基础的活动的技术障碍，以及此类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。研究团队将设计调查，进行可用性测试，并分析使用数据，以收集针对影响标准的证据。这些数据将为改进用户体验、算法调整和功能改进的迭代设计过程提供信息。

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.