A preliminary investigation of employment data collection in postsecondary education for students with intellectual and developmental disability

ABSTRACT

Background: Examining the data collection practices implemented by postsecondary education programs for students with intellectual and developmental disability represents the first step in documenting student progress, making programmatic data-based decisions, and evaluating the overall program effectiveness in preparing students for competitive employment.

Method: We administered a survey to a national sample of directors and coordinators (N = 52) of postsecondary education programs across the United States, who indicated that they collected data to gather information on student employment–related aspects and program effectiveness.

Results: Results suggest that a large number of programs collect employment data during student enrolment in the program, at graduation, and postgraduation, and make data-based decisions.

Conclusions: A wide variability exists in the type of data collection practices implemented by postsecondary education programs for students with intellectual and developmental disability in the United States. We discuss implications for future research and practice.

KEYWORDS:

• postsecondary education
• intellectual and developmental disability
• employment
• data collection

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.