Career & Major Inquiry Group Phase 1

Inquiry Process Summary: May 2017 - December 2018

For 18 months, PCC Pathways, Career Center, and Institutional Effectiveness staff; the Directors of Student Equity and Professional Development; PCC students; and external evaluators from UCLA’s Department of Education have participated in a data inquiry process that has included:

  • review of relevant literature to understand students’ funds of knowledge and the assets they bring to make decisions about major, career, and work
  • review of local labor market data
  • review of institutional course success data 
  • two sets of interviews with a total of approximately 200 Pathways and non-Pathways students in their first, second and third years of college (including international and undocumented students)
  • identification of “curricular pathways” based on course-taking data
  • discussions about PCC’s completion equity gap and strategies for closing it

The Career Data Inquiry Group (DIG) has met 12 times: from June 9, 2017 – to December 14, 2018. The DIG will continue in 2019 with a focus on pedagogy, transfer and work-based learning.

 

Inquiry Questions

  1. How does a student define success and completion?
    1. Are their definitions in conflict with institutional definitions?
  2. What is the relationship between career and major?
  3. What is the relationship between having clearly defined career goals and success/completion?
    1. When is it clear that a student has committed to a major/academic goal?
    2. How was that decision made?
  4. How does a student’s race/ethnicity/gender impact their choice of career? major? success/completion?
  5. What is the impact of full/part-time work on success/goal completion?
    1. Why do students work?
    2. For students who work, what are their reasons for working as much (or as little) as they do?
  6. How can PCC support students as they choose and commit to a career and major and complete an academic goal?
    1. How does the college interfere with/impede students’ career and major choices and goal completion?

PowerPoints, Data, and Summaries