The post CPRNW Pilot: Intermediate Outcomes and Program Impacts appeared first on SRDC.

The project, involving some 1,500 high school students in 18 B.C. schools, is actively testing interventions that address the fact that lack of academic engagement is often a barrier that prevents youth from proceeding to a post-secondary program after high school. The interventions prepare students for post-secondary studies by placing academically average students in advanced post-secondary preparatory classes while providing them with the skills and supports to achieve success with a curriculum based on writing, inquiry, collaboration and reading.

As shown in the BC AVID Early Implementation Report, released today, the project’s interventions aim to convert students from “passive learners” into active classroom contributors and critical thinkers. What makes the project unique in B.C. is that researchers will track participants’ outcomes against those of a comparison group to determine the effectiveness of the interventions and whether or not they improve rates of high-school graduation and post-secondary enrolment.

The post BC AVID Pilot Project – Early Implementation Report appeared first on SRDC.

Explore Your Horizons was implemented in Manitoba (where it was known as Future to Discover) and New Brunswick; Learning Accounts was implemented only in New Brunswick.

The post Future To Discover (FTD) – Interim Impacts Report appeared first on SRDC.

This experimental approach — proposed by CIRANO and first reported in a previous paper by Johnson, Montmarquette, and Voyer (2010) — involved subjecting high school students to a series of decisions, some of which involved potentially high-stakes choices between various combinations of grants and loans for full-time PSE and significant but smaller amounts of cash. Our principal research question is to what extent are higher price sensitivity and loan aversion more prevalent and thus likely to act as barriers to PSE participation among under-represented groups?

The post Willingness To Pay (WTP) for Post-Secondary Education among Under-Represented Groups appeared first on SRDC.

Post-secondary education plays an increasingly important role in helping individuals attain social and economic success. Promotion of high school students’ access to post-secondary education is a major goal of both federal and provincial governments, yet not all students make the transition.

Finnie and Mueller (2008) found less than two-thirds of Canadian students aged 15 years in 2000 had entered post-secondary education by age 19, and in British Columbia just half of high school students entered the province’s post-secondary system in the year following their high school graduation (BC Ministry of Education, 2006).

The post BC AVID Pilot Project – Interim Impacts Report appeared first on SRDC.

• enhanced workshops on career education in the last three years of high school to students in Grades 10 through 12 in New Brunswick and Manitoba, and
• an early promise of an $8,000 bursary for post-secondary education when made to New Brunswick students from lower-income families.

A detailed benefit-cost analysis found the early promise of a bursary in particular to be very cost-effective, due to its low administrative cost. It generated $2.00 to $3.40 in benefits to society for each dollar cost to government.

The report presents a full account of the impacts of Future to Discover on the main outcomes of interest including graduation from high school, applying for and enrolling in different types of post-secondary education for the different education systems and population sub-groups. Many interim impacts of the interventions are also of interest, such as on students’ course choices and achievement while in high school, and these are available and in a separate working paper based on school records data. Through rigorous evaluation, Future to Discover is providing much-needed knowledge to inform the selection of programs that deliver the most benefit to Canada’s economy and support all youth in having the opportunity to achieve their potential.

The post Future To Discover (FTD) – Post-Secondary Impacts Report appeared first on SRDC.

CareerMotion recruited over 500 PSE graduates residing in British Columbia who felt that they were overqualified for the work they were doing. Participants who signed up for the project were offered a 50/50 chance of receiving access to a custom-designed career development services Web site for five weeks. The online career tools were designed by professional career counsellors to help participants understand their own skills and career aspirations and link their career objectives to relevant, high-quality labour market information available on the Internet. This report is a comprehensive presentation of the impact of the CareerMotion Web-based tools on participants’ ability to make informed career decisions.

The post How Web-Based Technologies Can Improve the Career Choices of Young People appeared first on SRDC.

• Certain regions face sustained periods of high chronic unemployment: – Often arises from the decline of a core traditional industry – Jobs are scarce and the local economy lacks diversity
• Unemployment insurance and Welfare only offer passive and partial solutions
• Long-term unemployed face high risks of deteriorating skills and employability
• Training programs not promising in light of poor demand conditions

The post Meeting Expectations: Measuring the Impacts of Workplace Essential Skills Training appeared first on SRDC.

The Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC) was hired to implement, manage, collect and analyze the project data. The project tests a preschool program1 that combines a childcare component developed specifically to meet the needs of Francophone children in minority settings with a family literacy component targeting the parents of these children.

This program aims to develop the child’s language skills, knowledge and use of French, knowledge of and engagement in Francophone culture, as well as to foster the child’s school readiness and general development.

The post Readiness to Learn in Minority Francophone Communities: Report of Findings From The Preschool Phase appeared first on SRDC.

The objective of the project has been to determine whether making AVID available to its target group — identified and recruited in Grade 8 — increases the chances that members of that target group enrol in more rigorous study in high school, improve their achievement in high school, and enrol in post-secondary education. This report contains a summary of results for Grade 9 through to the first year of post-secondary education.

The post BC Avid Pilot Post-Secondary Impacts Report appeared first on SRDC.