Standardizing measurement of employment outcomes in vocational research

Vocational research requires standardized measures of employment outcomes. Yet studies vary widely in how they define measures used to assess employment outcomes. This article makes recommendations for a core outcome package of objective measures of competitive employment suitable for vocational research.

We identified seven criteria for assessing the utility of an employment measure: widely used, reliable, simple to collect, easily understood, demonstrates criterion validity, sensitive to change, and relevant to multiple groups with vested interests. We then conducted a selective review of employment measures found in published studies, using these criteria to evaluate a range of objective employment measures within a conceptual framework consisting of six domains: job acquisition, amount of time employed, employment earnings, time commitment to employment, consistency of employment, and job stability. Results: Based on our review, we recommend three primary outcomes (competitive employment rate, total time worked, and total employment earnings) and eight descriptive outcomes for inclusion in a core outcome package. To ensure standardization, we provide explicit definitions for each measure.

Adoption of a core outcome package will (a) provide guidance to researchers planning new studies, (b) provide a common set of measures permitting direct comparisons between studies, and (c) facilitate meta-analytic reviews by using common metrics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).