WIP: What makes a credential valuable?

Education is one of the most lucrative industries in any developed economy's labour market:

• A national education and training industry often has millions of funded and paying customers; 
• In Australia, the education and training industry provided paid employment for at least 1.3 million citizens (in 2019). And occupations (read: jobs) in education areset to grow by 13% in the next 5 years (Labour market information portal, 2020).
• Credentials are core to the business model underpinning this industry. (Very few people enrol in a credential with the intention of not completing, though many do not complete for a variety of reasons.)

So, for a thriving society, and for a robust education and training industry, engaging with credentialed learning is really important. That is, even though we can learn informally through work and life experience and curiosity (and we are so lucky to have so many great learning resources online), a credential usually means that our learning has been assessed and certified. Employment practices use credentials as signals of fit and capability, especially in one's earlier career stages.  

​Learners are likely to re-engage and influence others to engage in credentialed learning if they see value in the time, money and opportunity costs of acquiring a credential - this could be a formal qualification or a micro-credential.

Key questions:
What makes learners perceive a qualification or micro-credential as "valuable" - before they enrol, while they are completing it, and then beyond completion? Does this perception of value change over time, and does it depend partly on life stage?

Are the factors affecting our value judgements about micro-credentials similar to those that shape our judgements about the value of formal qualifications?

I don't have any clear answers to these questions yet, but I am on a path to discover them. I would be delighted to hear from colleagues who have already done some research in this area, or who have thoughts and ideas about what this research might uncover.