Boosting Readiness for Tech Careers with Intelligent Tutoring: A Learning Partnership with Per Scholas
In its 27-year history, Per Scholas has been successful in helping more than 17,000 individuals traditionally excluded from technology gain the skills and certifications needed for employment high-growth careers in the sector. Through its more than 850 employer partners, graduates go on to earn four times their pre-training wage in a variety of roles, including IT support specialists, Java Developers, software engineers, and cybersecurity analysts. Per Scholas’ mission is to advance economic opportunity through rigorous and cost-free tech training and direct connections to careers.
Rigorous studies of Per Scholas’ model have shown that the model produces large earning gains for participants six to nine years after participation.
Per Scholas is dedicated to continuous learning and innovation and is exploring ways to boost its already industry-recognized certification rate of 80 percent by focusing on learners who need additional supports to absorb difficult and technical materials. Graduates with an exam-based certification are about 72 percent more likely to obtain a job within four months of graduation when compared with learners who do not earn any certification. Per Scholas is interested in honoring different learning styles and understanding what different methods of content absorption would support learners in achieving these certifications.
The Partnership to Scale Per Scholas
In partnership with the University of Memphis, the PROPEL Center is working with Per Scholas to co-develop instructional models and supports that can adapt to individuals’ skills and needs, with the goal of helping the program exponentially scale to serve more learners across all learning styles.
Together, we are working to develop and integrate Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) into Per Scholas’ tech training program. Developed by experts from the University of Memphis, ITS provides adaptive, high-quality tutoring at low or no cost to learners. It leverages both carefully crafted content developed by experienced teachers, as well as artificial intelligence to measure learners’ progress, track their mastery of concepts, and tailor content to their needs, allowing learners to expand their skills rather than review content they already know.
The partners will test the effectiveness of the new model and determine whether: (1) it can successfully help trainees attain higher certification rates and (2) ITS can be adapted in various settings to reach a broader base of students.
PROPEL also strives to understand more about the population that Per Scholas serves and how they have succeeded in recruiting and promoting individuals that have been excluded from opportunity. We will share lessons from this work, along with lessons on the use of artificial intelligence to promote learning in workforce training, with the larger workforce field.
Per Scholas ITS Alumni Success Study: Helping Learners Try Again
Starting in 2025, Per Scholas will start offering a remediation course to alumni who complete the Per Scholas ITS. 150 students will participate in this first cohort.
AIR is partnering with Per Scholas to examine whether Intelligent Tutoring Systems can be useful for these goals and in what ways. Under this study, AIR will help Per Scholas integrate the ITS simulations into this new remediation course offering. We will collaborate on a qualitative study that uses administrative intake and class performance data from students, qualitative interviews, and system data from the ITS, which should add valuable insights on the needs of students who don’t succeed in the first pass.
It will help Per Scholas and the field understand whether or not ITS offer a technology-enabled solution for helping learners try again after they first fail. Paired with our broader study on ITS use in Per Scholas introductory IT course, this can illustrate a range of use cases for ITS.
