Traditional approaches to workforce development in adult job seekers are falling short.
Project Description
Traditional approaches to workforce development in adult job seekers are falling short. Many assume job-displaced workers need to learn a new skill set to be relevant and fail to prepare learners to develop enduring understandings that will set them up to thrive in an uncertain and constantly changing future of work. And while sometimes reskilling through workforce development programs is absolutely the right thing for a job-seeker to do, it should not be a ubiquitous and uniform response. As we look to the learning sciences, we can see a viable alternative in supporting job-seekers to analogically reason and transfer their skills to new and different types of work.
This project is an extension and attempt at validation of a prior study that found individuals who created a computer-based skills visualization were three times more likely to attain an internship than those who just reviewed their resume during a workforce development job-seeker program, and used 250% more skills to describe themselves and their fit to the job they were being interviewed for even thought it was in a different field than they had previously worked. This project will include redesigning the skill visualization technology based on learnings from the prior study, and adding in a co-construction aspect to the visualization. The study will then be conducted in real world contexts with workforce development partners who are supporting individuals to attain new and different types of work.