Thank you, Stephen, for your thoughtful comment and question. I am glad you mentioned support programs for students, as well as establishing a culture of seeking support as this is something our team will include in our study as part of the qualitative section.  

Regarding your last questions, we will assess the basic skills from the perspective of both the STEM students and STEM employers. First, we will survey the students’ basic literacy, numeracy, and digital problem-solving skills using the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). You can learn more about PIAAC by clicking here, and this page here is specific to the online assessment that students will be taking. Second, we will be interviewing employers regarding their hiring needs, hiring processes, and their perception of how well community colleges promote the skills needed for STEM jobs. Lastly, although we cannot ask the employers about the biases against community college students directly, we will ask them about how they view the community college in preparing students for the STEM jobs. As part of the interview, we will ask employers about where they hire from and how different hires compare on those skills. 

Please let us know if you have any follow up questions, of if I did not answer your question correctly. Thanks again, Stephen, for visiting our page!

Thanks for your question, Nuria. We're using the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) assessment to measure basic skills. It includes assessments for all three - literacy, numeracy, and digital problem solving. Students will be completing a pre- and post-assessment. You can learn more about PIAAC here (https://www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/), and this page (https://www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/onlineassessm...) is specific to the online assessment the students in our project will be completing. If you have follow-up questions or if I misunderstood your question, please let us know. Thanks again for checking out our video and for your question.

Yes, you did respond to my question about your research methods. I also read in a later comment that you're using interviews and focus groups. It sounds like you will have a lot of data to think about impacts! 

The other question was about the intervention side of the project. The video talks about developing the profile of basic skills, so I was wondering about what kinds of interventions/programs the project will be using to do that. 

Thanks for your follow-up question, Nuria. The intervention will actually be the community college programs in STEM fields. We've identified specific STEM-related programs at the community colleges participating in our project. Students will take the pre-test assessment prior to beginning their program and take the post-test assessment about 12-18 months later.

Hi, Daniel. Thanks so much for reaching out! The easiest way to stay updated is to connect with us via Twitter. As more of our publications become publicly available, we’ll post about them via Twitter to keep all everyone informed. Additionally, there will be a second video as we gather more results. Below are our Twitter handles:

@dryamataka (Takashi Yamashita, PhD - PI)

@RitaTKaram (Rita Karam, PhD - Co-PI)

@cummins_phyllis (Phyllis Cummins, PhD - Co-I)

@j_w_kramer (Jenna Kramer, PhD - Research Associate)

@alhelsinger (Abby Helsinger, MS - Research Associate)

@MPunksungka (Maia Punksungka, MA - Research Associate)

Thanks, Maia!

Helen, thank you so much for visiting our page and viewing our video.  That is interesting that you mentioned Washington State. We have a few collaborators in that area, so I can see there being a lot of activity in that space. Thanks again for stopping by!

Thank you, Overtoun! Yes, we will be collaborating with faculty from the community colleges. In fact, we are working with one community college on the West Coast and two community colleges in the Midwest. The faculty, as well as the administrative staff will help us recruit students for the PIAAC assessment, as well as be a part of interviews, classroom observations, and focus groups. 

Thanks for visiting our video, Julie, and thanks for the great question. We don't have a way of capturing this information during our pre/post PIAAC assessments, but we might hear, though our in-depth interviews with community college faculty, how this presents during coursework and course assessments. We can also consider adding specific questions around this topic to our interview guide

Thank you, Julie, for visiting our video and posting such a thoughtful question. Your comment regarding indigenous ways of learning among marginalized communities and the potential stress they may feel as a result of western workforce demands render an interesting area for future research. Do you have existing literature regarding this, or any information that you could share? Unfortunately, this is an unfamiliar area for me, and I would like to learn more. 

Thank you, Mary, for visiting our page! While our primary framework is human capital theory, we'll also briefly mention lifelong learning in our work. 

Thank you, Elena, for visiting our page. The aim of your program sounds similar to the goal of our project. I appreciate you mentioning workforce based experiences in the classroom, service learning courses, and undergraduate research as these are items/indicators we'll be on the lookout for in our classroom observations, focus groups, and interviews. I will certainly check-out your video!

Thank you, Gerhard, for mentioning this piece of information. Just to be clear, is this what you are referring to: https://connectedtech.org/?

This looks interesting and may be useful to us. Thanks, again!

Sarah, thanks for visiting our video! Your non-profit sounds like it's really filling a gap in your state. Do your learners who complete your programs earn any kind of certificate or credential? I viewed your video. Your 90% placement rate is impressive! Thanks for your work in this area. My brother just relocated to Mississippi - the Tupelo area. I'm going to send him information about your organization!

Participants receive a certificate from the MS Coding Academies, and our State agencies have added that as a recognized credential for hiring.  We are an AWS Educate provider, so learners can pursue certifications on that pathway. 

Please do have your brother reach out to me! sarah.b.lee@usm.edu