Strategies for Promoting Industry Certifications

How do schools promote certifications?

Those who said they offered certifications had different strategies for promoting them to students. They could select from these options:

• Sending information directly to student’s home
• Placing information on the school’s website
• Advertising on social media
• Announcing opportunities to earn certifications at school events such as assemblies
• Recognizing or celebrating students who receive certifications
• Providing an incentive or reward program (e.g., pizza parties or cash for exam success)

Overall, recognizing students who earned certifications was the most popular strategy. More than 80 percent of school staff said they did this. About two-thirds of respondents announced opportunities to earn certifications at school events, such as assemblies, or placed information on the school’s website. These activities are low-cost promotion strategies. Sending information to the students’ home would give parents direct information about the program, but less than half said they did that.

Regardless of locale, poverty level, or past student certification rate, the pattern of promotion strategies was consistent across schools. In each type of school, celebrating students who earned certifications was the most popular way to promote certifications, and advertising on social media and providing rewards were the least popular.

The biggest difference in choice of strategy was between schools with high past certification rates and those with low past certification rates. Those with high past certification rates used almost every promotion strategy more frequently than those with low past certification rates did.

Do schools emphasize certain career areas?

Students can earn certifications within these career areas:

• Agriculture
• Architecture & Construction
• Arts, AV Technology, & Communication
• Business Management & Administration
• Engineering & Technology Education
• Health Science
• Hospitality & Tourism
• Human Services
• Information Technology
• Law, Public Safety & Security
• Manufacturing
• Transportation & Distribution

Overall, 64 percent said they emphasized a particular career area, and this response did not differ much across types of schools. The biggest difference is by locale where 71 percent of city schools said they did compared with 60 percent of suburban schools.

Of those emphasizing a particular career area, at least half emphasized Information Technology; Health Science; and Arts, AV Technology & Communication. Fewer than 10 percent emphasized Law, Public Safety & Security; Manufacturing; Transportation & Distribution; and Human Services.

Schools had different priority areas based on poverty level, locale, and past certification rate.

High-poverty schools more frequently said they emphasized the areas of Agriculture; Engineering & Technology Education; Health Science; Hospitality & Tourism; and Law, Public Safety & Security than low-poverty schools did. In the area of Health Sciences, the difference between high and low-poverty schools was more than 30 percentage points. Yet, low-poverty schools emphasized Arts, AV Tech & Communication at a higher rate than high-poverty schools did.

Next, we examined the rates of emphasizing career areas by locale. Cities and suburbs have similar preferences for areas. For most of the areas, the difference was within 5 percentage points. However, rural schools seem to have different priorities than either city or suburban schools. Their rate of emphasizing Agriculture was more than 50 percentage points higher than city schools, and more than 40 percentage points higher than suburban schools. However, their rates of emphasizing Arts, AV Technology, & Communication; Engineering & Technology Education; and Heath Science were at least 10 percentage points lower than either city or suburban schools.

High-certification-rate schools had higher rates of emphasizing almost every area. The biggest difference was in the area of Health Science, followed by Business Management & Administration. However, there was no difference between high and low-certification-rate schools in Arts, AV Technology, & Communication.

Why do schools emphasize certain career areas?

School officials who said they emphasized areas had the opportunity to share their reasons for doing so. They could select as many options as they believed applied to their school from the following list. These options focus on different themes: high school experience, jobs, college access, and ease of process.

• High school experience
  • The area is popular with students.
  • Our district promotes the area.
  • School has good facilities for teaching the area.
• Jobs
  • School has business partnerships in the area.
  • General demand from local employers.
  • The area confers in-demand skills in overall job market.
• College access
  • The area connects to a program at a local community college or technical school.
  • The area provides potential college credit.
• Ease of process
  • The course requirements are lighter than other areas.
  • Ease of exam relative to other areas.

Overall, the most popular reasons for promoting specific certification areas were high school focused; more than 60 percent selected popularity with students and having good school facilities to teach these areas. Several schools promoted specific areas due to career-focused reasons. They believed these areas would help students get jobs. Over 40 percent promoted specific areas because they had partnerships with local businesses, or they believed the area would confer job-related skills. Additionally, over 40 percent selected college-focused reasons—a connection to a community college/technical school or the potential for college credit. The least frequently cited reasons were the perceived ease of exam or the lighter course requirements.

The basic pattern of responses was the same for school types based on poverty level, locale, or past certification rate. Yet, we did find some differences in their stated reasons for emphasizing career areas.

In high-poverty schools, the reasons for emphasizing career areas tended to focus on students' prospects after high school. These included job-related factors where the difference between high-poverty and low-poverty schools was at least 19 percentage points for each option. Additionally, high-poverty schools more often emphasized career areas for college access reasons. In contrast, low-poverty schools focused more on the high school experience. Staff in low-poverty schools most frequently said they emphasized particular career areas that were popular with students.

Reasons for emphasizing career areas did not differ much by locale. Most results were within 5 percentage points of one another. The biggest difference was for conferring in-demand skills in the overall job market. Here, the suburban schools had the lowest rate (32 percent) and city schools had the highest rate (62 percent) with rural schools in the middle (47 percent). (Results not shown.)

High-certification-rate schools selected almost every reason more frequently than low-certification-rate schools. The only reason more often stated by low-certification-rate schools was the relative ease of the exam. However, they did not differ in selecting areas because of lighter course requirements. The biggest differences between high and low-certification-rate schools were having facilities to teach the area and having a business partner. Perhaps if schools with low certification rates could improve their facilities and cultivate business partnerships, their certification rates would increase.