TASO: Educational Pathways Research
What TASO needed
The Centre for Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education (TASO) are the What Works Centre for higher education. They wanted to understand how the long term outcomes from higher education compare to other post-16 educational pathways for disadvantaged student groups. Existing research had exposed equalities gaps between disadvantaged students and their peers, both in terms of access to higher education and then in labour market outcomes later in life. However, there were key gaps in this research that TASO wanted to fill.
How we helped
Together with our partners at State of Life, we conducted a large research project, securing access to the National Pupil Database (NPD) and the new Longitudinal Educational Outcomes (LEO) dataset, to track more than a million young people through school, further education, higher education and into the labour market.
We tracked two cohorts of Key Stage 4 pupils through to their labour market outcomes 9 and 16 years after GCSEs, taking us up to when they were in their early 30s. We produced several multivariate regression models (one shown below) to better understand the size and significance of the impact of different educational pathways on future outcomes, while controlling for prior attainment, demographics and geography. This research, and the new dataset we produced, exposed new insights about the impact of different educational pathways on future earnings and employment rates.
TASO published our report, which outlined the key findings from the research, alongside a clear technical explanation of the work, its limitations, and the questions still remaining.
The impact of our work
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The research provided a clear and useful evidence base for TASO, young people and education providers. For TASO, the research showed when, and for which student groups, higher education institutions were providing value, while education providers were able to use the research to make decisions to improve their provision. Young people can also use the findings of this research when making decisions about their own educational pathways, taking into account their attainment and career goals. The research therefore helps both to address inequities over time and to ensure that young people make informed decisions.
The report and the supporting analysis can be viewed on the TASO website.
