A Framework for Evaluating Implementation of Community College Workforce Education Partnerships and Programs

ABSTRACT

Greater investments in community college workforce education are fostering large-scale partnerships between employers and educators. However, the evaluation work in this area has focused on outcome and productivity metrics, rather than addressing measures of implementation quality, which is critical to scaling any innovation. To deepen understanding of the field, sound metrics need to be assembled of the processes involved in workforce education (e.g., partnering with employers, designing and delivering instruction). This article addresses that gap with the Workforce Education Implementation Evaluation (WEIE) framework. Relying on five case studies of employer-community college collaborations, and drawing on labor-market analysis methods, partnership capital and regional ecosystem theory, and the learning sciences, the WEIE framework provides tools to characterize implementation quality. To illustrate how it works, we have applied the framework to two contrasting cases that represent the predominant approaches to engaging employers in workforce education programming: large-scale partnership and employer outreach.

Additional information

Funding

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DUE 0903331. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.