In the grayest and snowiest of times here in Wisconsin, some
exciting news hit our inbox yesterday from the National Science
Foundation. Our study was awarded a
supplemental grant that will extend our current project to include focus groups
with students and new hires. Given that
the current project is looking at education-workforce pathways and alignment issues
between educators and employers, it makes sense to speak with those who are actually
moving between these sectors. Also, few
studies have utilized the voices of students and new hires when investigating the
skills gap, so this addition to our study should prove fruitful for our
findings.
We have been in the thick of analysis for about two and half
months now – in other words, we have been spending lots of time both in NVivo coding
and in meetings discussing emergent themes.
We thought the study was exciting before, but now we have some pretty
incredible data to back that feeling up.
Once it is in better shape, we will share some highlights!
Besides coding, we have begun the groundwork for the first peer-reviewed
paper coming out of the study – a summative piece reporting the findings from
the project as a whole.
With piles of blankets and lots of hot tea and coffee, we continue
to move forward!
More to come.
