IT Pathway Diagnostic
Why interest alone isn’t enough
Once students have foundations down, they need somewhere to go next. Asking what they’re interested in gets you half an answer — a student can want a specialization they will struggle in. Asking only where they show aptitude gets you the other half, and a student who succeeds at something they don’t care about.
This tool measures both, then balances them. The goal is to put a student on a path where they are both motivated and likely to finish, and to map that path to certifications Florida’s CAPE program will actually fund — so the roadmap works for the student and for the school at the same time.
The instrument
A web-based assessment covering ten IT areas: support and hardware, programming, networking, security, database design, data analytics, cloud, virtualization, AI, and project management.
I chose the domains from what I can genuinely teach and support with my background and the program’s resources. Most map to the CompTIA Tech+ objectives, with a few changed to fit what we actually offer.
That choice reflects how I route students. Many arrive wanting A+, but its two-exam, all-or-nothing structure is a real barrier for the students I teach. Starting with Tech+ gets a credential in hand and a foundation under them; from there a student can specialize into Network+, Security+, AWS or another track that suits where their interest and aptitude actually meet.
Results sort matching certifications by difficulty and colour-code them by adult and dual-enrollment eligibility.
Admissions chatbot
I also built an admissions chatbot for iTECH in Microsoft Copilot Studio and embedded it at the bottom of the diagnostic. A student who has just seen their results can ask about programs and how to apply without leaving the page. It’s hidden while the test is running, so it can’t be used to answer the reasoning items.
The tool was built with AI assistance against my specification. The domains, the interest-and-aptitude model, the CAPE mapping and the advising logic are mine. The chatbot is my own build; its styling on the page was done with AI assistance.