Key points:
Fifty-nine percent of students say they would like more opportunities for career-connected learning, according to a new report from the New Hampshire Learning Initiative and Gallup.
The report, Voices of New Hampshire Students: Career-Connected Learning’s Role in Building Bright Futures, examines the impact of career-connected learning on the more than 8,500 New Hampshire students in grades 5-12.
About half of students say while at school, they learned about a job or career they previously did not know about. Students who have a mentor who supports their development are more likely to be engaged at school (36 percent) than their peers (16 percent).
Fifty-nine percent of surveyed students would like more career-related learning opportunities–especially if those opportunities align with their specific interests in jobs and careers. Just under half (48 percent) of high school students and only 25 percent of middle school students report their school’s career-connected learning offerings include the careers they are interested in.
Career-connected learning opportunities can include elective classes, units taught in core classes, career fairs, job shadowing opportunities, internships, and volunteering. Around one-third of students (34 percent) say their career-connected learning experiences have helped them formulate plans for life after high school. What’s more, at least half of students who have held an internship or externship (57 percent), completed a registered apprenticeship (54 percent), participated in job shadowing (51 percent), or taken a volunteer opportunity for a job- or career-related position (51 percent) say such activities helped inform their post-high-school trajectory.
Student engagement also increases with career-related learning opportunities. Fifteen percent of students who did not participate in any career-connected activity are engaged in learning, compared to 26 percent of those who have participated in at least one career-linked learning opportunity. Greater participation in career-related activities leads to even higher levels of engagement–45 percent of students who participated in 10 or more activities are engaged, compared to 22 percent among those who have participated in one to four.
“The NHLI-Gallup survey has been a game-changer for districts, providing data that underscores how important career-connected learning is to student engagement and mindset about the future. The data could not have come at a better time,” NHLI’s Executive Director Ellen Hume-Howard said in the report.
