PathwayU Information for Faculty

PathwayU is a self-guided online assessment to help students explore purpose and where it intersects with education, career, and employment. PathwayU assesses interests, personality, values, and workplace preferences in four different assessments. This information helps students learn about their preferred environments, communication with others, and other important factors when considering various career paths. The assessments take 20-25 minutes to complete in total, which make it easy for students to complete for personal career exploration or as a part of classroom assignments.

Over 9,000 Boise State students, faculty, and staff have completed the PathwayU assessments since 2020. A large portion of these assessments have been completed by students as a part of a classroom assignment and we hope that this page helps incorporate PathwayU into your course

If you are considering incorporating PathwayU into your course, we suggest taking the assessment!

Course Resources

Career Services offers a variety of adaptable and customizable resources to help you easily integrate PathwayU into your course and help students deepen their understanding of their PathwayU results:

Reflection questions to integrate into an assignment, in-class discussion, or discussion board
Assignment ideas and instructions on how to assign PathwayU to your students
Consultations and presentations for your course – email kelseynelson1@boisestate.edu for more information
Worksheets and a workbook from PathwayU

Key PathwayU Features

Boise State Academic Program Mapping

For students who are undeclared or still exploring their major, PathwayU shows students which academic programs at Boise State align with their career matches. This feature also allows students to see career options that correspond to their academic program.

Subject Area Career Matches and Occupational Information

PathwayU examines assessment results and calculates career fit to nearly 1,000 career paths. All career path recommendations come with information pulled from O*Net, an up-to-date job analysis tool from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Military Crosswalk

For veteran students, the military crosswalk feature shows which careers match their previous experience in the military. Veterans can search by their military code and branch.

Student Testimonials

“The Pathway U tool by Boise State University was a very beneficial and academically useful tool. I think it will be useful for students who are undeclared and still looking for majors that may interest them. After taking all of the assessments, I found that they were very accurate to who I am as a person.”

“This resource has been a significant help in discovering new pathways for my future career. Not only did it introduce me to careers that match up with my personality and interests, but it gives me correlating majors that Boise State provides to get closer to achieving greatness in that career path.”

“The tool is actually VERY good in helping you find careers that are suited for you. I mean come on, there’s filters, multiple layers of depth to the questions, and multiple choices are displayed, each choice having tons of information about it, even a video in some cases. This is absolutely amazing, I wish we had this when I was in high school a few years ago, it would have been really helpful.”

Frequently Asked Questions

Can students retake assessments?

Yes – In order to retake an assessment, users can select the “retake” button found in their assessment results.

Assessment results are impacted by many layered variables and taking into account a holistic view of how life events contribute to results. Therefore, it is possible that a student’s results could differ if they were to take PathwayU their first semester and then a second time during their last semester due to academic, career, or experiential exploration. It is also possible that a student may feel that their results are not accurate.

Although it is not a necessity to retake an assessment, retaking an assessment could be a good option for students who feel their results are inaccurate or if it has been a long time since they had taken the assessment. In addition, Career Services offers a variety of reflection questions for students to use to unpack their results. Consider offering different reflection question options for students who have already completed the assessment.

Who is able to take the PathwayU assessment?

Any student, faculty, or staff member with a Boise State login has access to PathwayU.

What if my student is not comfortable taking an assessment? Do I get to see student assessment results?

PathwayU has an assessment verification feature that allows you to be notified when a student completes assessments, while maintaining confidentiality of student assessment results. Because students maintain ownership of their results and the right to disclose/not disclose assessment results, the “Send proof of completion” button allows faculty to be notified that assessments have been completed by the students. This button is available on the right hand margin of the assessment page and can be accessed at any time after completing the assessments. Career Services does not encourage faculty to require students to send assessment results as a grading requirement.

Where can I get information about the accessibility of PathwayU?

Jobzology, the company that created PathwayU, has information on the accessibility of PathwayU. Jobzology has a commitment to universal access to the platform and is compliant with W3C Recommendations and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.

What is the research behind PathwayU?

Information about the research behind PathwayU can be found in the Impacting Student Success Through Purposeful Career Guidance publication.