Doctor Educationis / The thesis took the general question of responsive curriculum development which meets both the needs of work and those of the academy as its starting point. The rationale for the topic flows out of education policy and societal pressures worldwide which are calling for an ever greater responsiveness from higher education to the workplace in the twenty-first century. Responsiveness to work requires collaborative and integrative work between communities of academic and non-academic practitioners. Differences between knowledge and practices at work and within the academy are broadly acknowledged in the literature, yet the ensuing nature and complexity of interactions between these two communities in curriculum design on the ground is poorly understood. A key point is to recognize that integration as such cannot be the goal; the differences remain, but have to turned into productive collaboration and joint development, for example, of a curriculum. / South Africa

Career Preparation programs have been offered in British Columbia since 1980. However, in that time very little formal evaluation has been conducted to determine if Career Preparation programs are achieving the stated objectives. This study, based on Business Education Career Preparation programs in Vancouver secondary schools, surveyed Career Preparation students one, two, and three years after graduation. Schools which had started Business Education Career Preparation programs in September 1982 or earlier were selected. Graduates of these schools who completed a Business Education Career Preparation program in 1984, 1985, or 1986, were surveyed to determine their employment and post-secondary education experiences, whether their post-secondary education or employment was related to their Career Preparation specialties, and their perceptions of the program. The purpose of the study was to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the Business Education Career Preparation programs offered in Vancouver Secondary Schools in order to make recommendations for program improvements. The results show that 94% of respondents held at least one job since graduating from secondary school; 77% of respondents continue their education at a post-secondary institution; 67% of post-secondary programs enrolled in by respondents were at least somewhat related to their Career Preparation specialty; and 67% of jobs held since graduating from secondary school were at least somewhat related to their Career Preparation specialty. The Career Preparation program was rated at least somewhat helpful in facilitating progress in post-secondary education by 81% of respondents; 93% of respondents rated Career Preparation at least somewhat helpful in making career choices; 91% rated it at least somewhat helpful in providing employable skills; 85% rated it at least somewhat helpful in providing job search skills; and 68% rated it at least somewhat helpful in providing employment contacts. Overall, the Business Education Career Preparation program offered in Vancouver was judged as meeting the program objectives of the provincial curriculum. Recommendations are made for the program, including: matching students more carefully to work experience placements which meet their interests, career goals and specialty; more careful monitoring of work experience sites to ensure that appropriate tasks are being assigned; offering programs which will interest both males and females; coordinating employment opportunities for graduates; improving articulation with post-secondary programs; and structuring Career Preparation programs to allow for flexibility in course requirements and work experience. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

M.Ed. (Educational Management) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

No abstract available. / Dissertation (MEd (Educational Guidance and Counselling))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

The purpose of this study was to determine the level of emphasis middle schools place on career awareness and exploration.

No description available.

This study enhances student acceptance of career investigation and contains extensive lesson plans for each day of the school year, plus one copy of each handout to be duplicated. The classroom is run as a business where students work for the instructor and are paid by check at the end of each week. Money is deposited on account and used to purchase course grades. The more money the student earns, the higher grade he can purchase. The findings show that students learn more about careers. Students became aware that the higher paying career fields required more schooling and/or training, resulting in changed attitudes about school. They were able to see how the relationship of the learning process could determine their future.

No description available.

Counselors and psychotherapists have urged for a number of years that the interaction between client and treatment characteristics be examined. All clients are not expected to benefit equally from one particular style of treatment. Although client-method interactions have been investigated in therapy contexts, little has been done to examine the effects of interaction on career decision making. The present study was concerned with the interaction between a client variable, locus of control, and a treatment variable, group structure. Subjects were fifty-five community college students enrolled in a career development course. Two intervention styles were designed; one stressing a structured, systematic approach, the other emphasizing self and environmental exploration in an unstructured context. Subjects were classified as internals or externals using Rotter's Internal-External Scale. Career decision making was assessed both before and after treatment by the Assessment of Career Decision Making (ACDM). The ACDM quantifies the stages of decision making hypothesized by Tiedeman and O'Hara (1963). Results indicated that the mean ACDM decision making task scores for college major and occupation were higher after treatment than before, regardless of intervention structure. Comparison of the two intervention styles, however, revealed that the means for unstructured groups on the College Major Decision Making Task were higher than those in the structured group (p < .08). Investigation of the levels within each decision making task uncovered that an interaction between locus of control and group structure had effected the scores of the Clarification stage of the College Major Decision Making Task and of the Choice stage of the Occupational Decision Making Task. While significant (p < .06) the interaction was in an unexpected direction. Internals tended to have high decision scores after exposure to the structured intervention and externals tended to have higher scores after having been in unstructured groups. Additional analyses pointed out that the importance an individual places on making decisions is the best predictor of post intervention decision making scores. / Ed. D.

The present study was concerned with career education practices in higher education settings. The major purpose of this study was to determine if the recently published course, Career Planning and Decision- Making (979), which was developed by Appalachia Educational Laboratory, was effective in assisting freshman and sophomore students in choosing or examining their choice of a major and enhancing their career decision making behavior. A secondary purpose of the study was to obtain eva1uative data on this published course. The Harren Assessment of Career Decision-Making, the Rotter Internal-External Scale, and a personal interview, using a structured interview schedule, were used to gather data. The significance of the difference between the groups on the I-E Scale and pretest was determined by analysis of variance using the .05 level of significance. The difference between the groups following the treatment were determined by analysis of covariance with the I-E and pretest as covariates. Career Planning and Decision-Making was taught during the Winter Quarter, 1979, at a large comprehensive university in Virginia. The population consisted of freshman, sophomore, and transfer students who wer~ enrolled as pre-education majors. From the students who volunteered for the course a random assignment was made to either the control group (N = 21) or the experimental group (N = 21). An analysis of the data revealed: (1) no difference at the .05 level on the ACDM pretest or the Rotter I-E Scale scores; (2) no difference at the .05 level on either the career decision to attend college or the choice of a major; but (3) significant differences (p < .001) in decision-making styles and choice of occupation. The structured interview revealed that the students perceived themselves as being more effective decision makers and as having made progress in choosing a major and an occupation as a result of the course. All indicated they were very pleased with the course and all recommended that the course be incorporated as a permanent offering, preferably at the freshman or sophomore level. It was concluded that the course, Career Planning and DecisionMaking was effective for teaching career planning and decision-making skills to students in college settings. / Ed. D.