Aligning Undergraduate Residential Construction Education with Workforce Needs: A Mixed-Method Study

Undergraduate residential construction programs face growing pressure to prepare graduates with competencies that reflect evolving workforce expectations. This study develops a preliminary evidence-informed framework for aligning undergraduate residential construction education with workforce expectations identified from selected U.S. residential construction markets and practitioner perspectives. Two complementary evidence streams were integrated. First, a systematic screening process informed by PRISMA reporting yielded 156 residential construction job postings collected from selected markets in the U.S. Southeast and Southwest (2024: 70; 2025: 86), which were analyzed using thematic coding to identify labor-market competency requirements. Second, a three-hour focus group involving 14 senior residential construction professionals representing 10 NAHB-affiliated firms provided practitioner perspectives on workforce competency expectations and educational preparation. Findings were integrated using Patton’s convergence model to examine convergence, complementarity, divergence, and source-specific signals across the two evidence streams. Five competency areas received cross-source support from labor-market evidence and practitioner perspectives. These findings were subsequently organized for educational interpretation within the following four domains: Technical; Professional; Management; and Safety, Quality, and Regulatory Compliance. Digital construction capability emerged as a cross-cutting practitioner-anticipated signal. The integrated findings informed six proposed educational modules and associated indicative learning outcomes. The study contributes a mixed-method approach for integrating labor-market and practitioner evidence and demonstrates how such evidence can inform preliminary curriculum design.