EVIDENCE BRIEF
What Works In Career Exploration: An Assessment of the K-12 Evidence Base
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What Works in Career Exploration is a body of research spanning career development, youth development, education, and workforce fields that provides a strong rationale for early and sustained career exploration as a developmental priority. Yet evidence is still developing on how specific practices contribute to the academic and career outcomes that matter, for which students, and under what conditions. This evidence brief synthesizes research across these domains to assess what young people should gain from career exploration and what studies show about different practices and program models. It identifies where evidence is strongest, where important gaps remain, and how the field can strengthen research, measurement, and learning to improve quality over time.
Supported by the Walton Family Foundation and Britebound, this publication is part of a broader set of resources on career exploration in middle and high school, including Laying the Groundwork for Effective Career Exploration and Making Career Exploration Count. Together, these resources synthesize current evidence, define the core components of high-quality exploration, examine the conditions that shape implementation, and identify priorities for practice, policy, measurement, and future research.