1. Tristram Hooley 19th April 2018 CEC Community Event, Manchester
What works? A guide to the evidence on careers and enterprise activities
Tristram Hooley
19th April 2018
CEC Community Event, Manchester

2. Overview The case for evidence Evidence based careers work
Gatsby – An evidence based framework
What works?
What next?

3. Overview The case for evidence Evidence based careers work
Gatsby – An evidence based framework
What works?
What next?

4. Why evidence matters

5. Make time for evidence

6. Ben Goldacre on evidence in education
What needs to happen?
Research on what works best should be a routine part of life in education
Teachers should be empowered to participate in research
Myths about randomised trials in education should be addressed, removing barriers to research
The results of research should be disseminated more efficiently
Resources on research should be available to teachers, enabling them to be critical and thoughtful consumers of evidence
Barriers between teachers and researchers should be removed
Teachers should be driving the research agenda, by identifying questions that need to be answered.
Ben Goldacre on evidence in education

7. Levels of evidence

8. Types of evidence Case studies Satisfaction studies
Practitioner perspectives
Benchmarking
Before and after
Then and now
Longitudinal tracking
(Randomised) control trials
Cost-benefit analysis

9. EEF toolkit

10. Overview The case for evidence Evidence based careers work
Gatsby – An evidence based framework
What works?
What next?

11. Why careers matters? Economic Educational Social
To ensure that there is a strong link between education and employment and that transitions into and within the labour market work as smoothly as possible.
Educational
So that young people understand all of the options that are available within the education system and are motivated to engage with education.
Social
To support all young people to access the full range of life chances regardless of their background..

12. Career is…
part of an effectively functioning education and employment system; and a safeguard against ineffective and imperfect systems.

13. Careers and enterprise education
Our theory of change
A wide range of careers and enterprise activities and programmes
Careers and enterprise education
Personal effectiveness
Career readiness
Employability skills
Social capital
Personal attributes
Educational outcomes
Career outcomes
Personal outcomes

14. Building up the evidence

15. Overview The case for evidence Evidence based careers work
Gatsby – An evidence based framework
What works?
What next?

16. Reminder - Good career guidance
Summarises existing evidence and frames them as eight benchmarks.
Presents it in a way that can be understood by policy makers and acted on by school leaders.
Has achieved wide support amongst policy actors and practitioners alike.
The influential 2014 report

17. The Benchmarks 1. A stable careers programme
2. Learning from career and labour market information
3. Addressing the needs of each pupil
4. Linking curriculum learning and careers
5. Encounters with employers and employees
6. Experiences of workplaces
7. Encounters with further and higher education
8. Personal guidance

18. State of the Nation 2017
Based on responses from 578 secondary schools gathered through the Compass self- assessment tool in 2016/ The scope of the data is broadly comparable with data collected as part of the original Gatsby Good Career Guidance research in 2014 allowing us to see how provision has changed over time.

19. COMPASS (www.compass-careers.org.uk)

20. Number of benchmarks met by schools

21. 5 ways to get your school moving in the right direction
Start early (e.g. year 7).
Engage all stakeholders, including parents and employers.
Update your website with information about your careers programme.
Join the Enterprise Adviser Network.
Complete Compass every year.

22. 5 substantial initiatives to improve your programme
Develop careers content in all subjects, not just PSHE.
Take advantage of labour market resources and make them available to all students and their parents.
Provide ALL students with information on ALL routes.
Provide experiences of workplaces for all students.
Adapt existing systems to track destinations and careers and enterprise activities.

23. Overview The case for evidence Evidence based careers work
Gatsby – An evidence based framework
What works?
What next?

24. What works?

25. The what works series Business games and enterprise competitions
Careers events
Careers in the curriculum
Careers websites
Employer mentoring
Teacher CPD delivered by employers
Transition programmes for young people with SEND
Transitions skills (Mock interviews and CV workshops)
Volunteering
Work experience, job shadowing and workplace visits

26. Planned
Colleges Personal guidance Primary

27. Key sections
What is … ? What impact does it have? What are the lessons for practice? How should the evidence base be developed?

28. What impacts we are looking for
Personal effectiveness
Career readiness
Employability skills
Social capital
Personal attributes
Educational outcomes
Career outcomes
Personal outcomes

29. Example: Volunteering
Moderate evidence - most of these evaluations are high quality evaluations of single programmes or from surveys, with limited evidence from studies using control groups. Evidence of impacts on personal effectiveness, career readiness and employability skills Lessons for practice: (1) volunteering should be promoted to all young people; (2) support them to find the right placement; (3) young people should be encouraged to volunteer for as long a period as possible; (4) support should be given to the young person to volunteer; (5) the beginning and end of the role need to be clearly demarcated; and (6) support should be given to help the young person recognise what they have gained from the placement.

30. General lessons from the evidence
Well designed
Experiential
Learning focused
Led and coordinated by professionals
Context aware
Involving employers and working people
High volume
Varied
Recognising the diversity of learners
Providing feedback and assessment

31. Overview The case for evidence Evidence based careers work
Gatsby – An evidence based framework
What works?
What next?

32. We need…
Studies to explore the optimum timing, duration and mode of delivery of career guidance interventions. Development and adoption of more standardised measurements. Increased use of controls and randomisation. Longitudinal work. More use of administrative datasets and (online) big data. More literature reviews and statistical meta-analyses.

33. We also need practitioners who
Read and learn from the evidence Engage in research projects Drive the evidence through innovating and spotting what might work.

34. References
Early Intervention Foundation. (n.d.). EIF evidence standards. Available from [Accessed 19th April 2018]. Education Endowment Fund. Teaching and learning toolkit summaries/teaching-learning-toolkit/. Gatsby Charitable Foundation. (2014). Good Career Guidance. London: Gatsby Charitable Foundation. Goldacre, B. Bad Science. The Careers & Enterprise Company. (2017). State of the Nation London: The Careers & Enterprise Company. What works and other research publications are available from

35. In summary
Evidence matters! We know quite a lot about what works? We are still learning all the time. But none of it matters unless we all use it.

36. My contacts
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