ASME Community College Engineering Pathways Program

Project Outcomes

The Community College Engineering Pathway Program (CCEP) is an ASME workforce developmental program. Since May 2021, it has served engineering students in community colleges pursuing two-year degrees or other certifications. The program provides them with resources and opportunities for skills development to prepare them for the engineering and technical workforce.   The fellow’s contribution to this project was to assist ASME in understanding the current impact of the program on the post-graduation outcomes of students engaged in the program and identify the best approaches to assess this outcome to gather accurate and reliable data. The evaluation of the CCEP program on students’ outcomes provided insights for scaling up the program, contributing to extending ASME’s reach to over 80 community colleges and 1500 students in the United States by 2026.

Desk research was conducted to identify the best practices used to assess post-graduation outcomes in the United States. The fellow also conducted an evaluation of the program using the recommended practices gathered from the desk research to gather data and assess the extent to which the program’s intended outcomes for students have been achieved. The fellow presented a comprehensive research report comprising of the desk research outcomes, a plan and tools for measuring CCEP program outcomes, key findings and recommendations on improving the program to better serve the needs of students in community colleges.

The outcome of this project was the design of an outcome evaluation process and a participant engagement tracker for routine monitoring of the CCEP program to enhance data-driven decision-making to assist CCEP with outcomes and impact tracking and inform program design and adjustment in subsequent years. Additionally, the impact research helped ASME understand the impact of its program on skill development, academic persistence, and post-graduation outcomes for its participants.

Theory of Change for the CCEP Program