Bridging the Skills Gap: Understanding Learner Characteristics and Performance in a Digital Upskilling Program

The growing skills gap, driven by continuous technological advancement and shifts in the global labor market, has become one of the most critical issues for younger generations. Still, it can oftentimes be extremely difficult for employees to anticipate and prepare for emerging skills and jobs on their own. Effective online upskilling and reskilling programs thus arise as a potential solution to bridge the gap between the educational system and the job market, addressing the rapidly evolving learning needs in the workplace. As a case study, I partnered with a digital upskilling and reskilling platform that aims to equip frontline employees with job-relevant knowledge and skills and guides them to (re)identify their career pathways. Clustering analysis and predictive modeling were applied to uncover learning patterns of potential student subgroups and to identify significant factors contributing to short-term academic achievement and long-term professional success. Employing a range of regression and tree-based algorithms, the findings emphasized the importance of project-based and inquiry-based learning approaches, as well as the alignment between course selection and intended learning outcomes, in promoting course completion. In addition, recommendations on data collection and survey design were provided to the platform to facilitate more scalable and finer-grained insights into student learning processes.