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Education and learning are embodied experiences that unfold in time.

This is the anchoring insight of Pathways Lab.

We aim to understand how identities, aspirations and learning opportunities coevolve to shape lives and life chances.

Learning is complex. Context, emotions, prior experiences, and relational systems like race, class, gender, and nationality influence how learning unfolds. We try to keep it all in sight.
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We use many data sources, methods and frameworks to understand how people navigate learning.

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online learning

What works, what doesn't, and what the future of online learning might be.

Projects

  1. pandemic response
  2. learning from MOOCs
  3. ambiguous credentials

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sequences and forecasts

Using computational, qualitative and archival techniques to understand how learning paths unfold.

Projects

  1. undergraduate cohort study
  2. course consideration
  3. observing major selection
  4. course evaluations and peer review
  5. STEM pathways

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platforms and toolkits

Powerful, user-friendly tools to aid in course search and path discovery.

Projects

  1. Carta platform
  2. Via sequence visualization tool

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student narratives

Utilizing a cache of hundreds of thousands of essays submitted with applications to a large public university system, the student narratives team is exploring how young people make sense of their life experiences and represent their accomplishments to others.

Projects

  1. fairness and ethics in computational assessment
  2. the production of merit

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paths to work

The relationship between schools and workplaces is complex and changing rapidly. Our work informs public discourse on how best to scaffold education and learning opportunities over the entire life course.

Projects

  1. pandemic response
  2. universities and the future of work

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responsible use

The ubiquity, detail and fidelity of data describing learning interactions brings extraordinary opportunity to improve education -- but also obliges educators to share and deploy data responsibly. Pathways Lab takes these responsibilities seriously and continuously.

Project

  1. responsible use website

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We share our work.

We publish research results in a variety of peer-reviewed venues. Team members also write opinion pieces and policy briefs. Have a look.
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Teaching Online in 2020: Experiments, Empathy, Discovery

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The authors attended discussions and interviewed instructors in Stanford’s Computer Science Department to identify successful approaches and problem areas in the rapid transition to online learning.

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Building Tomorrow’s Workforce Today: Twin Proposals for the Future of Learning, Opportunity and Work

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The US federal government has serially called upon colleges and universities to assist the nation in moments of national crisis. This brief outlines an ambitious plan to enlist the postsecondary sector in helping millions of Americans get back to work in the wake of the pandemic and equip them for ongoing prosperity in a highly dynamic economy.

Hamilton Project / Brookings, 2020

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The confidence gap predicts the gender pay gap among STEM graduates

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Is there a gender pay gap among graduates in some science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields? Women and men have near-identical human capital at college exit, but cultural beliefs about men as more fit for STEM professions than women may lead to self-beliefs that affect pay. We hypothesized that women and men would be paid differently upon college exit,…

PNAS, 2020

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Ambiguous Credentials: How Learners Use and Make Sense of Massively Open Online Courses

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As low-status academic offerings purveyed by high-status institutions, massively open online courses (MOOCs) are ambiguous credentials. In interviews with 60 people who devoted substantial time to at least one MOOC between 2014-2017, we find that people use MOOCs to build skills for application at work and home, build relationships, navigate life transitions, and enhance formal presentations of self.

Journal of Higher Education, 2021

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Studying Undergraduate Course Consideration at Scale

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Using digital trace data to observe this process at scale at a private research university, together with qualitative student interviews, we provide a novel empirical study of course consideration as part of the course selection process.

AERA Open, 2021

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Essay Content is Strongly Related to Household Income and SAT Scores: Evidence from 60,000 Undergraduate Applications

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We utilize a corpus of 240,000 admissions essays submitted by 60,000 applicants to the University of California in November 2016 to measure the relationship between the content of application essays, reported household income, and standardized test scores (SAT) at scale. We find that essays have a stronger correlation to reported household income than SAT scores.

CEPA Working Papers

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We are a diverse team.

Since our inception in 2016 we have benefitted from the contributions of scores of students, faculty and staff researchers from every unit of Stanford. Pathways Lab is truly interdisciplinary, with special depth of expertise in computer science, economics, gender theory, machine learning, market design, social psychology and sociology.
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Join us.

We're always on the lookout for collaborators, critics and fellow travelers.

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