The Hidden Innovation Infrastructure: Understanding the Economic Development Role of Technician Education in the Changing Future of Work

在衡量高等教育对经济发展影响的大多数传统方法中，技术人员和两年制院校的作用都没有得到承认。该项目旨在通过确定两年制院校技术教育项目和劳动力发展的经济影响来解决这一差距。该研究将调查社区大学技术人员教育计划和国家科学基金会高级技术教育（ATE）计划形成基础设施的假设，该基础设施既创造了熟练技术人员的劳动力，也创造了有助于提高工作场所生产力和创新的支持生态系统，从而刺激了区域经济发展。多方面的混合方法研究将包括社区大学技术教育和经济发展的国家分析，以及技术教育和先进制造业行业的深入区域案例研究。全国分析将检查来自美国劳工统计局职业就业统计和美国人口普查局县商业模式的数据。案例研究地点将根据ATE项目投资、农村水平、制造业、经济背景和经济发展区域进行选择。该项目将从两个方面促进对技术教育对经济发展的贡献的理解。首先，该项目将对社区大学技术人员教育在经济发展中所起的作用形成一个更精确的概念。其次，除了简单的就业和收入模型之外，该项目还将对工作场所的结果进行更深入的研究，以深入了解技术人员工作的性质以及工作场所的创新和生产力。除了新的数据收集之外，两个主要数据集将在分析中结合起来：美国劳工统计局职业就业统计数据和美国人口普查局县商业模式数据。两者都使用北美工业分类系统。综合专上教育系统数据和ATE计划奖励数据将用于衡量不同的相关领域，例如高等教育的学生人数。国家教育统计中心将使用教学分类程序代码与标准职业分类代码之间的人行横道，将教育程序与职业联系起来。该项目将研究社区大学技术人员生产的趋势和技术人员劳动力市场的趋势，并将根据美国国家科学基金会的国家培训、教育和劳动力调查数据进行扩充。将采用准实验的差异中差异方法来建立技术人员教育/ATE计划与创新/经济和劳动力发展之间的因果关系。阿斯彭研究所和国家新经济指数正在进行的工作将为案例研究措施和分析提供信息。对相关案例研究进行比较分析将有助于：确定是否存在感兴趣的现象；探索这种现象在不同条件下的变化；调查这一现象影响的差异；检验不同现象之间的理论联系和新出现的联系；并检查产生这种现象的条件。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。

The roles of technicians and two-year institutions are unrecognized in most traditional approaches to measuring the impact of higher education on economic development. This project aims address this gap by identifying the economic impact of technician education programs and workforce development at two-year institutions. The research will investigate the hypothesis that community college technician education programs and the NSF Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Program form an infrastructure that creates both a workforce of skilled technicians and an ecosystem of supports that help to increase workplace productivity and innovation, thus spurring regional economic development. The multi-faceted mixed-methods research study will include a national analysis of community college technician education and economic development, as well as in-depth regional case studies of technician education and industries in advanced manufacturing. The national analyses will examine data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics and the U.S. Census County Business Patterns. Case study sites will be selected based on ATE program investments, level of rurality, manufacturing sector, economic context, and economic development region. The project will advance understanding of technician education’s contribution to economic development in two ways. First, the project will develop a more refined conception of the role that community college technician education plays in economic development. Second, the project will provide a deeper examination of workplace outcomes beyond simple employment and earnings models to generate insights on the nature of technician work and on innovation and productivity in the workplace.In addition to a new data collection, two primary datasets will be combined in the analyses: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics data and the U.S. Census County Business Patterns data. Both use the North American Industry Classification System. The Integrated Post-Secondary Education System data and ATE program award data will be used to measure different cognate areas, such as the number of students in higher education. The National Center for Education Statistics crosswalk between Classification of Instruction Program codes with the Standard Occupation Classification codes will be used to link education programs to occupations. The project will examine trends in technician production from community colleges and trends in the technician labor market, which will be augmented with data from the NSF’s National Training, Education, and Workforce Survey. A quasi-experimental difference-in-differences approach will be used to establish causal linkages between technician education/ATE program and innovation/economic and workforce development. On-going work by the Aspen Institute and the State New Economy Index will inform case study measures and analyses. Comparative analysis of the linked case studies will contribute to: identifying the presence or absence of the phenomenon of interest; exploring how the phenomenon varies across conditions; investigating differences in the impact of the phenomenon; testing theoretical and emerging linkages among different phenomena; and examining conditions under which the phenomenon arises. 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.