SBIR Phase I: Hats & Ladders: A Mobile Platform to Foster Career Self-Efficacy in Middle and High School Learners

This SBIR Phase I project serves a national need for stronger career readiness by connecting youth to project- and work-based learning experiences that will help them to apply and extend classroom learning. These experiences will increase their career self-efficacy and skills, and help them to develop a critical understanding of careers and the work environment, at an age when it matters the most?before they become disengaged and potentially disconnected from school and work. This investment in career readiness also reduces the societal costs associated with millions of youth that are currently disengaged and marginalized. The cost of this disconnection in the United States is staggeringly high; one study estimates the annual cost to taxpayers for addressing its direct negative effects to be $26.8 billion. Successful and widespread adoption of this project will increase the pool of qualified applicants for employers in industries across the U.S., especially in STEM fields for which there are two to three million unfilled positions due to a shortfall in qualified candidates. By helping youth to engage in meaningful career-related learning experiences this project will have the broader economic impact of increasing their likelihood to stay in school, find good employment, and contribute to the country's vitality over the long-term. The project combines compelling youth-centered visual and interactive design with analysis of open labor data, personal user data from individual and aggregate usage, and empirically-tested career development inventories. Users explore a range of career pathways and career readiness competencies, as well as recommendations for both proprietary and third party career education content and programs. The project consists of a cross-platform app that allows users to build a profile, explore STEM and other industries of interest, and gain understanding of the relevancy of key career readiness practices. Through data generated by usage, simple assessments and self-reflections, the user profile is strengthened and more specific careers can be explored through leveled online and real-world activities. The project also includes a web-based reporting dashboard that tracks usage and performance data. The project will address the technical hurdles for both the young user to identify meaningful project and work-based activities, and for public and private providers of such activities to reach more youth and improve the impact of their programs. The research team will design surveys, conduct usability tests and analyze usage data to gather evidence against impact criteria. These data will inform an iterative design process for improved user-experience, algorithm adjustments and feature improvements.