Stasz, C., & Brewer, D. J. (1999). Academic Skills at Work: Two Perspectives (MDS-1193). Berkeley: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, University of California.

Conclusions

In this chapter, we have argued that the narrow focus on academic skills as important predictors of labor market success could potentially yield misleading statistical results and policy inferences. If individuals possess a bundle of academic and non-academic skills, omission of non-academic skills from regression models of labor market performance may under- or overestimate the importance of academic skills for labor market success. The extent to which this is the case is, of course, an empirical issue and depends on (1) the relationship between academic and non-academic skills, and (2) the relationship between non-academic skills and labor market outcomes.

Ideally, one would investigate these two questions directly. The different dimensions of non-academic skills would be broken down conceptually and valid and reliable measures of these dimensions developed. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Just as with the measurement of academic skills, one is forced to rely on proxies that may to a greater or lesser extent measure the relevant concepts. In large national longitudinal datasets, possible indicators of an individual's non-academic skills are the extent to which students have participated in extracurricular activities and part-time work during high school. Both these arenas at least provide the opportunity to develop a range of skills such as teamwork, communications, responsibility, and so on.

Proceeding on the assumption that extracurricular and part-time work participation should be viewed simultaneously with academics as alternative skill indicators, we used two national data sources to investigate (1) the relationship between academic, extracurricular activities, and part-time work and (2) the extent to which these indicators affect wages two years after high school for those entering the sub-baccalaureate labor market. The analysis reveals that there is a modest positive association between academic and extracurricular activities, and a negative association between hours of part-time work in high school and academics, and, to a lesser extent, between extracurricular activities and hours of part-time work. While no causality should be inferred from these descriptive statistics, they reveal that academic measures alone are very unlikely to adequately capture the multifaceted skills individuals take to the labor market or postsecondary education.

Simple wage regressions for the group of high school graduates who enter the labor market directly after high school suggest (in line with much prior research) that academic indicators have little impact on early career (two years after high school) labor market success. Extracurricular activities also do not appear important for this group.[33] The important skill set seems to come from previous work experience in both 10th and 12th grades--students who worked more during high school earn marginally more once they enter the labor market after high school. The inclusion of these additional skill indicators, however, does not appear to change the estimates of the effects of academic skills when these are included alone. If this result were to withstand further sensitivity analyses, it would imply that previous research that has omitted measures of non-academic skills might not have suffered from a large degree of bias. Of course, this statistical result does not imply that the inferences made in prior studies about the importance of academics is correct. Our results suggest that, at least for the group of individuals directly entering the sub-baccalaureate labor market, there is a bigger payoff to work experience in high school than academic ability or coursetaking. This could imply a very different set of school-sponsored activities such as work-based learning for non-college-bound students.[34]

Without direct measures of skills and a full understanding of how extracurricular and part-time work experiences enhance an individual's skills, we can only speculate that the measures we have used contain useful information about skills. It would appear that employers do not systematically reward academic preparation for the kinds of jobs our samples of high school graduates are undertaking[35]; rather, they attach a premium to the extent to which individuals have worked while in high school. Whether this reflects a true return to the skills learned in part-time high school jobs or the use of this indicator as a signal of some other trait such as motivation is hard to tell from these data; however, it appears that some useful information is contained in these measures.

[33]Given the very large differences in participation in extracurricular activities between those who go on to a four- or two-year college, and other groups (Tables 4.4A and 4.4B), it seems likely that extracurricular activities may play a larger role in determining entry to college, although this is speculative without further multivariate analyses.

[34]Further investigation would be needed to draw similar inferences for college-bound students. Also, any policy shift such as that suggested here would obviously need to be based on a full accounting of other (including social) costs and benefits, not just on the result obtained here.

[35]Students entering the labor market directly after high school in our samples appear to go into a wide range of jobs. For example, for the 1992 cohort, 15-20% went into clerical positions, 10% were laborers, about 15% went into skilled trades/craft jobs, 10% were in sales, and 15-20% were in service occupations. Beyond self-reported categorizations of this sort, little information is collected in such data about the tasks performed and responsibilities an individual has at work.

Stasz, C., & Brewer, D. J. (1999). Academic Skills at Work: Two Perspectives (MDS-1193). Berkeley: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, University of California.