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Increasing Applied STEM Curricular Opportunities in High School and Impacts on Early Post-Secondary Outcomes: The Effect of Project Lead the Way

Takako Nomi,
Darrin DeChane,
Michael Podgursky

Project Lead the Way (PLTW) is an applied STEM Career Technical Education program that has been adopted widely across the country. Using data from Missouri, we investigate the impact of PLTW course expansion on program participation and early post-secondary outcomes. Our identification strategies rely on within-school between-cohort variation in PLTW course availability. This serves as an instrument to identify program participation impacts. We find that greater PLTW course availability is related to higher program participation, college enrollment, and STEM major declaration with greater benefits for students with strong prior STEM preparation. Males are more responsive to Engineering course expansion and females to Biomedical Science expansion. Participation impacts on five-year STEM major declaration are larger for females than males.

Education level
K-12 Education
Topics
Pathways to and Through Postsecondary
Tags
Career and technical education,
High schools,
Science education
Download 10/2025
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/6dje-dn09
EdWorkingPaper suggested citation:
Nomi, Takako, Darrin DeChane, and Michael Podgursky. (). Increasing Applied STEM Curricular Opportunities in High School and Impacts on Early Post-Secondary Outcomes: The Effect of Project Lead the Way. (EdWorkingPaper: -1300). Retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University: https://doi.org/10.26300/6dje-dn09

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