SSRC Awarded $1,064,933 by Santa Rosa Community College to Survey Employment Outcomes of Former Students

For the fifth consecutive year, the Social Science Research Center, led by Director Laura Gil-Trejo, was contracted by Santa Rosa Junior College to collect data as part of its Career and Technical Education (CTE) Employment Outcome Survey (CTEOS). CTEOS is a statewide study that assesses the employment outcomes of students who participated in CTE training coursework at California Community Colleges. The results are used to improve CTE programs locally and are posted on the CTE Launchboard (a collaborative effort between Cal-PASS+ and the Chancellor's Office Doing What Matters for Jobs and the Economy).

Data collection for the study involves administering a 20-item telephone survey to up to 50,000 students enrolled at one of California’s 116 community colleges during the 2016-2017 academic year. Telephone surveys are conducted at the SSRC’s 24-station Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) lab seven days a week by approximately 100 trained telephone interviewers, almost all of whom are students.

“Our students also gain a great deal as a result of the training and work experience they receive at the SSRC,” says Gil-Trejo. According to Reanna Kraemer, a third-year CSUF student in Child and Adolescent Development, administering the CTEOS “has helped me explore a multitude of different professional fields. This project has given me some insight into what types of classes or programs help you find success in your desired career path. [It] continues to remind me that success [is] found in multiple ways, not always by having to attend a University.”

CATI lab supervisor and student Emiko Tam Haga, a fourth-year economics major notes, “From  my observations, there is a great interest in providing programs and services for students to succeed in their desired career paths. I learned that it is sometimes the case that people do not end up working within the same field [they received their educational training in]: perhaps coursework more concentrated on skill-building and broadly-applied themes would be beneficial to students .… It has also been my observation that accommodation services sometimes fall short for individuals like veterans and the disabled and that greater/more involved advocacy is needed.”

The CTEOS is one of several studies being undertaken at the SSRC. Others include a data collection effort commissioned by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), in addition to evaluations of Riverside City College’s STEM En Familia Program, the North Orange County Public Safety Task Force’s Efforts and the Early Child Mental Health and Wellness Program.