May 16, 2024
"More is more”: the impact of careers education on later outcomes
Does school-based careers education, advice, information and guidance (CEAIG) have any influence on later life outcomes? A body of research has shown that careers education and activities can play an important role in helping young people to prepare for and navigate transitions into the world of work. It has also shown that the quality and quantity of provision can vary considerably, with those who are most socially disadvantaged experiencing the least and lowest quality provision. However, until now, the impact of careers education on later life outcomes has remained unclear.
A new paper written by Dr Julie Moote and colleagues seeks to find out what relationship there is between young people’s perceptions of the quality and quantity of school-based careers activities and education experienced at the age of 14–16 and their outcomes several years later, when they are 21–22. Findings are discussed in the light of recent legislation relating to careers support in England, which highlights how important it is to ensure that the needs of all young people transitioning into the workforce and adulthood are met.
Summary
Dr Moote and her colleagues conducted a large-scale postal survey of young people in England by obtaining a sample of young people born 1 September 1998 and 31 August 1999 who were registered on the Open Electoral Roll. The responses of 7,635 young people were included in the study. The questionnaire explored young people’s experiences, aspirations, expectations and influences, their general views on science and careers, extra-curricular activities, qualifications, attainment and socio-demographic factors. It also reported on measures of job satisfaction, income, and perspectives and confidence relating to future careers and work. The paper focuses on data that specifically relates to careers provision, which sought to establish young people’s perspectives on the careers education that they received at school and how helpful they found it.
The analysis showed that experiencing a greater number of careers advice and guidance activities at school significantly predicted more positive future prospects. The more activities that an individual reported taking part in, and the more activities they reported as being helpful, the more likely they were to report feeling confident and experiencing low levels of concern when thinking about their future employment or training. Young adults who recalled having a greater amount of careers guidance at school felt more confident about their future work prospects, felt better prepared for life and experienced greater life satisfaction, and those who were in employment felt happier and more satisfied with their jobs.
To contextualise this, Dr Moote found that the odds of young people reporting more positive future prospects were 85% higher if they recalled eight careers activities at age 14–16, compared to someone who reported zero. Good careers provision at school also predicted significantly increased odds of young people reporting being in education, training or work at the age of 21/22. School type also emerged as a significant predictor in feeling prepared for life, with independent school pupils having twice the odds of reporting preparedness compared to state comprehensive pupils, and 1.47 times higher odds than grammar school pupils
Implications
“We are careful here not to overstate the implications of the findings. However, while we cannot claim causality of the results… this work documents the long-term value and potential positive influence of these CEAIG activities on outcomes reported later in life… These results show that the more we do for young people (i.e. the more supportive development activities we support/encourage them to participant in) and the higher the quality of the activities we provide for them is (i.e. the more helpful they report finding the activities), the stronger the relationships might be to the adult outcomes.”
Implications for schools
Dr Moote advises all schools to consider the Gatsby Benchmarks when developing an authentic, contextualised and personalised careers programme. Defined in a detailed report, these eight benchmarks outline best practice in careers education and scaffold the structure of provision within schools. They have really helped in the move towards standardisation of careers provision and in keeping individual settings more accountable.
Start early. The younger we begin to talk to children about the different kinds of jobs available to them, the better. Primary teachers might consider using The LOUD! Network’s free resources. They contain videos and follow up activities which relate curriculum based content to specific careers.
Monitor and measure. The majority of careers education is offered on a self-referral system. This could potentially disadvantage those that might benefit from it the most, as it relies on students to understand the kind of support that they need, actively seek it and opt-in to do it. Schools should monitor and measure uptake, notice patterns and evaluate the strategies that are being used in order to check that careers programmes and activities are reaching the widest possible number of students. Reflect on the structure used within your setting and, if you use a self-referral system, evaluate whether it is working and what implications it has.
Implications for parents
Have dinnertime discussions. Make time to talk about different careers and potential future prospects, and make conversations about science part of your everyday life. Dinnertime chats are known to have a significant positive impact on how children feel about themselves and their academic capabilities.
Make the most of your contacts. Work experience is often organised by parents. This is brilliant in families with strong professional relationships and contacts, but far more challenging for those with less access. Make the most of your strengths and tap into your support network for help if you need it.
Be open to your children’s opinions and interests, and be curious about the things that fascinate them. It’s important to put our own views and feelings aside when talking about careers with our children. To help them have a fulfilling career, we need to understand what they want and what would be the best option for them, rather than projecting our own motivations onto them.
In relation to STEM, help children understand that science is transferable and is for everyone. A STEM qualification can open many doors and provide many opportunities. People with STEM qualifications are less likely to be employed below their skill level and there is a real need for skilled people in the STEM sphere.
Check out Talking Futures. This online resource is designed to help parents have informed and constructive conversations with children about the different training and education pathways available to them.
Dr Julie Moote
Freelance research and evaluation consultant.
Dr Julie Moote started out as a science teacher, but has been an academic researcher for a decade and is now a freelance research and evaluation consultant. Her most significant project has been the ASPIRES investigation. ASPIRES was a huge longitudinal study which followed a cohort of students over a 13 year period – from primary school leavers, through to university graduates and young people transitioning into the world of work – investigating how their aspirations for education, and then work, in STEM-related disciplines formed and developed over time. The findings of this project have been reported to Parliament and are informing government policies on how to encourage more young people to get into STEM careers. Broadening the pursuit of STEM is one of Julie’s main passions – particularly making STEM a safer and more inclusive space for people of all backgrounds and characteristics. And she is also very interested in how inquiry-based learning programmes can help to inspire budding scientists.
Dr Julie Moote
Freelance research and evaluation consultant.
Scroll our research gallery
Sep 16, 2024
How Do Young Children’s Relationships with Parents and Teachers Impact Their Adjustment to School?
We already know that children's relationships with their parents and teachers contribute to their school adjustment and achievement, and that positive, close relationships with adults are really important for a wide variety of children’s outcomes. However, few studies have examined interactions between these relationships or sought to address the nuances of children’s experiences in terms of how different relationships have different impact or influence. To address this, along with colleagues, our new Researcher of the Month, Dr Caoimhe Dempsey, has recently published an article which aims to examine the links between children's relationships with their mothers, fathers and teachers, and three domains of school adjustment: academic achievement, academic self-concept and behavioural adjustment in the classroom. By examining a range of data, the researchers sought to find out whether some children are more susceptible to the effects of the quality of their relationship with their teacher.
Aug 19, 2024
Supporting children's transition to secondary school
Supporting children to successfully transition from primary to secondary or senior school is vitally important. It's a big life change, which can leave both parents and children feeling excited and nervous in equal measure. At Tooled Up, we often use the analogy of a journey for the transitional experience. In fact, anyone who has attended or watched a talk with our founder, Dr Kathy Weston, is likely to have heard her say that we'd all want our children to be well prepared for any journey they go on, and that, as loving parents and carers, we wouldn't dream of sending them off on any journey without the right equipment, mindset and strategies to reach their destination safely and securely. Transition to a new school is no different. Research shows that there are numerous holistic protective factors that can help to ease transition. Conversely, it's also the case that problems with successfully transitioning to secondary school and subsequent lower levels of school connectedness are associated with lower education outcomes, school drop-out, higher levels of depression and anxiety, and increased involvement in criminal, violent and antisocial behaviour. Research also shows that these difficulties may not be equal across different socio-demographic variables, with children from underserved communities (including those from minority ethnic backgrounds and lower socio-economic status) and children with behavioural difficulties facing greater challenges during the transition to secondary school. It's therefore important for all parents and educators to consider how to make this transition as seamless as possible. Along with her co-authors, our Researcher of the Month, Dr Aurelie Lange, has published a new paper which evaluates the efficacy of a new UK-based online intervention called Level Up. In it, Dr Lange seeks to explore families' experiences of facilitators and barriers to engagement and change.
Jul 15, 2024
The impact of digital experiences on teens with mental health vulnerabilities
Over the last decade, digital developments have led to major changes in the ways that teens learn, work, play and interact with others. Digital access is a daily reality for most children and young people. Nine in 10 children in the UK now own a smartphone by the time they reach the age of 11, and the large majority of children aged 11 now use social media (78%) and have a social media profile (72%), despite being younger than the minimum age requirement for many platforms. By the time teens are 17 years old, 97% will use social media. Coincident with this change, adolescent mental health problems have also increased in prevalence. It is therefore no surprise that much research has focused on the relationship between digital experiences and adolescent mental health. However, comparatively few studies have directly compared the experiences of teens with mental health conditions meaning that some key questions remain unanswered. Do adolescents with pre‐existing mental health conditions differ in terms of why and how they engage with the digital world compared to peers without such difficulties? Are specific mental health conditions linked to different patterns of digital usage? What role do such differences play in the development and escalation of these conditions? In a recent paper, our Researcher of the Month, Dr Kasia Kostyrka-Allchorne, and her colleagues, explore what the evidence shows about the digital experiences of teens with mental health vulnerabilities.
Jun 13, 2024
NELI Preschool: a new oral language enrichment programme for preschools and nurseries
Oral language skills provide the foundation for formal education, yet many children enter school with language weaknesses. Oral language is fundamental to children’s overall development and educational success. It is linked to all higher level cognitive skills and is pivotal for literacy development, and education more generally. It’s also vitally important for children’s social and emotional development. The term oral language refers to a complex set of skills that should ideally work seamlessly together to enable children to communicate with others by producing and understanding language. It’s an umbrella term, encompassing numerous component skills which include having a good vocabulary and the grammatical ability to combine words effectively to convey meaning, along with an understanding of cause and effect, memory skills and the ability to plan what to say and what not to say. Language skills develop rapidly between the ages of 3–6 years making preschool an excellent time to intervene to support language development. Because of this, Dr Gill West and her colleagues – as part of a team headed by Professor Charles Hulme – have developed and evaluated the efficacy of a new language enrichment programme, the Nuffield Early Language Intervention—Preschool (NELI Preschool), which is delivered to children the year before they enter formal education. The programme combines language enrichment for all children, with additional targeted support for those with language needs, potentially narrowing the gap in language skills associated with social disadvantage.
Apr 11, 2024
STEM in preschool settings: do teachers’ scientific questions differ by child gender?
In the US, as in numerous countries including the UK, female and non-White students are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) fields. A significant body of research demonstrates significant gender disparities in STEM achievement, participation and attitudes from early childhood, and that these continue to widen as children get older. Children are strongly influenced by their early environments and conversations with adults. Whilst gendered messages around STEM are now rarely explicit – children are unlikely to be told that girls can’t be scientists – they may receive more subtle messages about representation and belonging. These differences may contribute to children’s beliefs about their own STEM ability, their performance in STEM activities, and their decision to pursue a career in STEM. US researcher, Dr Sona Kumar, and her colleagues sought to explore whether there are subtle differences in the messages that preschool educators send girls and boys about STEM. Previous, older research with caregivers found that parents tended to provide more scientific explanations to boys than to girls. Studies have also found that, within classroom settings, boys often receive more attention from teachers on science-related subjects than girls. Dr Kumar predicted that teachers would direct more scientific questions to boys than girls and tested this by observing a preschool setting.
Mar 14, 2024
Do parental controls work and what are the pros and cons?
Policymakers and technology companies promote the use of parental control tools to ensure children’s safety in our digital age. In recent years, there has been considerable industry investment in this new generation of technical child protection measures, designed to help parents and carers to control what their children see and do online. Some of these tools operate at the level of the device (such as a phone or tablet). Other tools are embedded into specific services, such as Snapchat, or streaming services such as Netflix. Others work at the level of the operating system, such as IOS, Android or Windows, or are provided by your broadband company. Control tools vary in functionality. Some allow parents to limit the amount of time that children spend on a device or particular app. Others can track their child’s location. Internet filters block certain categories of content (violence, adult content or gambling, for example), or specific websites. There are other tools that track children’s online activity (search history, online purchases or activity logs, for example) and provide reports or real-time alerts to parents. Some tools track activity and interactions on social media platforms and can limit children’s contact with unknown users. But how many families actually make use of them, and do they work? Our Researcher of the Month, Dr Mariya Stoilova, and her colleagues, reviewed all available evidence in a recently published study.
Feb 09, 2024
BMI, body dissatisfaction and depression: positive steps forward
We know that more adolescents are experiencing depressive symptoms than in the past, but we don’t yet know precisely why. Noting a need to understand modifiable risk factors for depression, which could inform future preventative work, our researcher of the month, Dr Francesca Solmi, and her team, have recently published new and novel findings about the impact of high BMI and body dissatisfaction on children’s later mental health. They “found strong longitudinal evidence that a high BMI in childhood is linked with an increased risk of depressive symptoms multiple years later” and discovered that body dissatisfaction accounts for a significant proportion of this link, finding strong evidence that being unhappy with one’s appearance at the age of 11 is linked with increased depressive symptoms during the teen years.
Jan 15, 2024
New study links energy drinks to mental health problems in young people
We’ve all seen the vast array of colourful cans and bottles in the supermarket. Perhaps you are a fan yourself. But did you know that, in 2020, the energy drinks market was worth $45.8 billion globally? It is a large and expanding market, projected to grow at an annual rate of 8.2%, and reach a whopping $108.40 billion by 2031. Despite the fact that these products typically contain very high levels of both caffeine and sugar, and warnings on labels that they are ‘not recommended for children’, they are extremely popular with young people. In fact, if you have offspring of a certain age, you are likely aware that 2023 was the year of Prime, a product popularised on social media. Initially, Prime was a hydration drink, but the range has since expanded to include an energy drink containing caffeine. It became so popular among teens that bottles were spotted selling for £18 in some shops (and more on resale sites), despite the recommended retail price being only £2.99. Research from a few years ago had already found that up to a third of children in the UK consume caffeinated energy drinks on a weekly basis and ranked young people in the UK as the biggest consumers of energy drinks in Europe for their age group. 13% identified as high chronic consumers – having energy drinks four to five times a week, or more. Published today (15th January), the most comprehensive evidence review to date has found that consuming energy drinks is associated with a wide range of risks, including increased risk of mental health issues among children and young people. Our researcher of the month, Professor Amelia Lake, along with co-author Dr Shelina Visram and the rest of the team at FUSE (the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health) at Teesside University and Newcastle University, examined data from 57 studies of over 1.2 million children and young people from more than 21 countries. The study’s findings build on earlier research and highlight numerous risks associated with energy drinks.
Dec 11, 2023
Mainstreaming the Black Pill: Incels on TikTok
You may well have heard of incels (involuntary celibates). Following several violent attacks associated with the ideology, this subgroup of the ‘manosphere’ has recently received a significant amount of media interest. Once mostly contained on niche men’s forums, incel communities and theories are gaining prominence on mainstream social media platforms. The incels are an online community whose members define themselves by their inability to form or access sexual relationships with women. They believe that society is stratified according to physical attractiveness. Women and attractive men are privileged, and unattractive men (like them) are excluded from sexual or romantic relationships. The ‘black pill’ ideology maintains that unattractive men cannot escape their romantic fate because their unattractiveness is pre-determined by genetic factors. Incels believe that their physical traits are substandard and that they are therefore discriminated against by women based on their physical appearance. Misogynistic incels believe that this social structure has been created by women and encouraged by feminists. They consider women to be privileged, entitled, lookist and promiscuous, and believe that women always choose the most physically attractive men and exclude those who are less attractive, using pseudoscience and evolutionary psychology to reinforce their claims. Whilst previous research considerably enhanced our understanding of the incel phenomenon and their presence on Reddit and secluded incel forums, incel’s presence on mainstream social media platforms is understudied and their presence on TikTok is yet to be addressed. Our Researcher of the Month, Anda Solea, is hoping to fill this research gap and has recently co-authored a paper on the incel subculture on TikTok. It examines the presence and spread of misogynistic narratives linked to incels on TikTok and YouTube aims to identify the mechanisms that drive engagement to such content.
Nov 21, 2023
What are the Benefits of Outdoor Learning?
There is now a significant body of research which indicates that nature is linked to physical, cognitive and emotional benefits for children. In fact, amongst other positive outcomes, nature exposure has been linked to improved affect and cognition, prosocial and self regulated behaviour, better performance in school tests, improved mood, confidence and social skills, reduced ADHD symptoms, lower physiological stress and better physical development and health. It’s even associated with creativity! Much of the existing research into the impact of nature on children does not focus on school settings. Many papers consider specific schemes such as Forest School, which differ significantly in both curriculum content and approach to the kinds of learning that children tend to do indoors. This creates challenges in using it to inform practice in schools. Our Researcher of the Month, PhD student Gemma Goldenberg, aims to address this problem. She hypothesises that if exposure to nature can improve cognition, physical health, social behaviour and wellbeing, then spending more of the school day learning outside in natural settings could have a significant positive impact on pupils’ attainment and mental health. She has carried out some exciting work within primary schools and has designed her project to help schools develop effective learning environments and interventions, and a research informed approach to outdoor learning.