Comparing Modern Apprenticeships and industry training

2.1. Cohort selection

A cohort of industry training learners was selected from the industry training Performance Management System (PMS).  Modern Apprenticeships learners were drawn from the coordinator dataset. The cohort was chosen to ensure an adequate population across independent variables. To facilitate this, the industries were limited to those administered by ITOs involved in both the industry training and Modern Apprenticeships programmes between 2002 and 2005.

For the within-Modern Apprenticeships comparison used in Model 2, the industries were further limited to those with learners with both ITO and non-ITO coordination to enable fair comparison.

The basis of cohort selection was as follows:

• The earliest start date in industry training or Modern Apprenticeships is set between 1 January 2002 and 31 December 2005.
  
• The level of the programme the learner enrolled in is set at Levels 3 or 4 for both industry training and Modern Apprenticeships.
  
• Industry training programmes were limited to those leading directly to national qualifications on completion. Selected learners were excluded if they were enrolled in a Limited Credit Programme (LCP), Supplementary Credit Programme (SCP), Trade Certificate (TC) or unidentifiable programme type in industry training.
  
• Learners were involved in one programme only throughout the training, administered by a single ITO, and were active in one fund category only (either in Modern Apprenticeships or industry training).
  
• Learners enrolled with an ITO that also administered Modern Apprenticeships programmes.
  
• The age of the learner at their first enrolment  was between 15 and 21 years inclusive.
  
• Prioritised ethnic group of learner limited to one of European, Māori, Pasifika or ‘other’. Asian and ‘Not stated’ learners were excluded from cohort selection due to their a-typicality (patchiness of distribution between sub-categories of other variables is undesirable in logistic regression analyses).

These selection criteria produced a cohort comprising 29,406 learners: 12,910 Modern Apprentices and 16,496 industry training learners.

Footnotes

9. See appendix table 1 for industries and learner numbers.
10. See appendix table 2.