Educational and career decisions for school leavers are complex and influenced by multiple factors. These can include: factors at the level of an individual, such as cognitive abilities, motivations and self-beliefs; factors related to the family environment, such as parental education and beliefs, and family income; factors relating to the school setting, such as type of schooling; and finally factors relating to the broader economic and cultural context. These factors, besides having a direct and specific impact on individuals' educational and professional path, interact in complex ways. For individuals with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), education and career decisions are likely to be even more complex, and we know that career advice for individuals with SEND is often patchy and incomplete.

In order to gain a thorough understanding of the factors involved in the post-secondary educational and occupational choices of individuals with SEND, we plan to combine two complementary data analysis techniques: a variable centred approach, which examines which variables play an important role in predicting outcome across the range, and a person centred approach, which is focused on a holistic analysis of the combined effect of multilevel factors. This allows us to understand whether there are different profiles of individuals with SEND who show different post-secondary choices.