An Evaluation of the Wisconsin Career Pathways Web Site: A Comprehensive Plan for Ongoing Development. Margaret A. Rubin, 2014: Applied Dissertation, Nova Southeastern University, Abraham S. Fischler School of Education. ERIC Descriptors: Career and Technical Education, Career Exploration, Career Guidance, Evaluation, Web Sites. This research study was designed to provide for the ongoing development and improvement of the Wisconsin Career Pathways Web site. The Web site aids secondary educators in the development of secondary-to-postsecondary programs of study, assists middle and high school students in career exploration and academic planning, and helps middle and high school counselors and advisers guide students for success in college and careers by providing them with access to school-wide and individual student Web-site activity. The Web site was developed in phases following a year of planning during the 2008-09 fiscal year. The concept of programs of study is a relatively new and emerging school-reform initiative, and the Wisconsin Career Pathways Web site project was initiated as a Web-based dynamic data-driven resource to help Wisconsin stakeholders. The Web site has been in a constant state of development, expansion, upgrade, and improvement since the launch of its 1st phase in 2010. A developmental evaluation approach was utilized to address the evolving nature of the Web site. The writer developed online surveys to gather input from 3 stakeholder groups: technical college career-prep administrators, middle and high school counselors and advisers, and secondary program-of-study builders. Following quantitative and qualitative data analysis of the surveys, the writer developed a preliminary plan for the Web site's ongoing development and followed up with a focus-group session of interested survey participants representing each of the stakeholder groups. Based on the analysis of qualitative data collected at the focus-group session, the researcher finalized the preliminary plan. The final plan includes a discussion of the data collected and analyzed as well as recommendations for ongoing development and improvement of the Web site. The sequential mixed-methods approach was instrumental in exposing the satisfactory components of the Web site. In general, the data reflected satisfaction with the Web site, namely its user-friendliness, which was one of the project team's earliest goals for the Web site. The Web site is seen as an essential resource for Wisconsin stakeholders. To keep moving forward with Wisconsin's program-of-study and college and career planning initiatives, addressing the unmet needs of stakeholders will not only increase Web-site usage but will lead to a clearer understanding of those initiatives. Based on the results of this study, the researcher developed a comprehensive plan. The plan suggests that improving the online program-of-study builder tool, providing more training, building reporting capacity, developing a marketing plan, and increasing Web-site interactivity based on push-notification technology are necessary actions for the ongoing development and improvement of the Web site. The findings of the study will be submitted to the Wisconsin Technical College System.

The purpose of this study was to conduct qualitative interviews of 10 Human Resource Managers to determine their perceptions of the soft skills necessary for successful employment, to determine the primary causes of involuntary turnover, and to determine their perceptions of the proposed Smart Start Pathway to improve potential employee success and employment retention. 10 businesses located in a 9-county region in central Mississippi were purposively selected to participate in this study. 2 of the businesses were service sector employers, and 8 were manufacturers. Interviews were scheduled with the Human Resource Manager for each business, and the manager was supplied with a copy of the interview questions and a copy of the career pathway curriculum to review. Interviews were conducted, transcribed, and analyzed to determine results. Human Resource Managers revealed that communication skills and dependability were the most frequently cited soft skills important for employee success; the most frequently cited causes of employee dismissal were attendance, rule violations, and behavior problem; and finally, the managers interviewed were positive in their perceptions of the efficacy of the proposed career pathways model. The study showed that soft skills identified by Human Resource Managers and those skills contained in the training modules of the career pathway model are similar. The managers were in agreement that these skills might be better learned and retained at an earlier age than those who will be taking this training to enter the workforce. Additional research is recommended to quantify career pathways program outcomes upon implementation, to determine the causes of employee attendance issues, to determine the practices of employers who demonstrate low turnover rates, and to determine the viability of offering this training as part of the secondary education process.

<p>Despite recruitment and retention efforts, women remain underrepresented in the engineering profession. More than two-thirds of women leave engineering within 15 years of graduation, double the rate of men. Women leave or feel psychologically pushed out of the engineering profession because of harassment, discrimination, work-life balance, an initial mismatch between their personal and workplace characteristics, or other reasons. </p> <p><br></p> <p>While previous studies have identified the reasons why women leave engineering careers, a limited number of studies have described how they leave engineering - the processes and pathways that they follow. Furthermore, few empirical studies have examined women's career decisions over their lives. While researchers have investigated how and why women pursue and persist in engineering academic programs, fewer studies have examined women's engineering career decisions after entering the workplace. In this study, I develop a greater understanding of women's engineering career journeys, including their departure from the profession, by addressing: <em>What are the career stories of women who have left engineering after having worked in industry? </em></p> <p><br></p> <p>I explored women's engineering career decisions using narrative inquiry and a novel, boundary-spanning framework encompassing aspects of the Unfolding Model of Turnover and Career Construction Theory. My participants were three women who had practiced engineering in industry for five to seven years before they left the profession. I conducted three ninety-minute interviews with each participant and used a background questionnaire, a workplace artifact, and a life experience timeline to further elicit their narratives. Incorporating a timeline activity increased the quality of participants' narratives. I used a two-part approach to handling and making meaning of my data. First, the participants and I collaborated to construct first-person narratives, which showed the complexity and nuances of women's engineering career pathways. Then, I created interpreted narratives, which described participants' stories of leaving engineering through the shocks (jarring events), scripts (plans of action), and image violations (violations of goals and values) of the Unfolding Model of Turnover. </p> <p><br></p> <p>All participants left engineering according to a newly identified pathway, whereby a shock, in the presence of image violations, caused them to leave the profession to pursue previously identified scripts. The participants experienced similar shocks and enacted similar scripts. For example, all participants enacted a script to stay home with their children, and two participants experienced the same shock, trouble conceiving children. Another key finding is that participants didn't realize they were leaving the profession when they resigned from their last engineering job: two participants sought ongoing part-time engineering work but were unsuccessful. </p> <p><br></p> <p>Knowledge gained in this study expands our understanding of women's engineering career decisions, informs women's engineering career planning, facilitates the program planning of career service providers, and contributes toward broadening the participation of women in engineering. In addition, findings suggest that if employers provide flexible work options and create pathways for returning engineers, then more women will remain in or return to the engineering profession, thereby improving the representation of women in the engineering workplace. </p>

När förstelärarreformen sjösattes 2013 förändrades scenen för de svenska lärarna. Flera decenniers jämlikhetssträvanden bröts genom att en ny titel, förstelärare, introducerades som en möjlig karriärväg för ”särskilt yrkesskickliga lärare”. Reformen lämnar till de lokala huvudmännen att avgöra hur förstelärarna ska utses och även vilka uppgifter som dessa ska utföra. Reformen är den senaste i en rad reformer som introducerats i det svenska skolsystemet under de senaste decennierna; reformer som kontinuerligt har förändrat lärarnas arbetsförhållanden.Målet för denna studie är att undersöka och problematisera reformens inverkan genom att låta en grupp förstelärare i en liten kommun ge sin syn på sin nya position. Hur artikulerar förstelärarna sina krav på jurisdiktion? Hur definierar de en ”särskilt yrkesskicklig lärare”? Analysen görs på de spontana berättelser som uppstod efter att gruppen skissat kring frågan ”Var befinner du dig i skolans organisation?”De teoretiska ramverk som används är diskursanalys i enlighet med Ernesto Laclau och Chantal Mouffe (1985), men jag använder mig även av Andrew Abbotts (1988) arbete för att beskriva hur gränser skapas och uppehålls på arbetsplatser. Abbott möjliggör en definition av de arenor där förhandlingarna äger rum, och Laclau och Mouffes verktygslåda tillhandahåller medel för att dissekera diskursens element.Resultatet visar att förstelärarnas definition av ”en särskilt yrkesskicklig lärare” mer riktas mot vad läraren gör än mot lärarens personliga egenskaper. Diskursen består av fyra element. Nyckelelementet består av positionen som gör det möjligt för försteläraren att operera på flera nivåer i organisationen. Tillsammans med personliga kvaliteter skapas en grund för funktionen – att leda skolutveckling. Det synliga arbetet legitimerar förstelärarnas krav på jurisdiktion, vilket i sin tur ger tillgång till positionen. Förstelärarnas gränsarbete är i första hand riktat uppåt i organisationen. De ger uttryck för ett behov av stöd från sina rektorer och gränser för det arbete de ombeds att utföra, samtidigt som de gör anspråk på tillgång till skolutvecklingsuppgifter.Studien pekar på de spänningar som byggts in i det svenska skolsystemet efter decennier av politiskt motiverade reformer, och den belyser behovet av möjliga karriärvägar för fler lärare. / In 2013 the stage changed for the Swedish teachers when the “first teacher” reform was launched by the Swedish government. After decades of egalitarianism, these traditions were broken when a new title, first teacher, was introduced as a possible career pathway for “highly skilled teachers”. The reform gives the local authorities freedom to determine how the first teachers should be appointed, and also to design the tasks that should be performed. The reform is the latest one in a number of reforms that have been introduced in the Swedish school system during the last decades; reforms that continuously have changed working conditions for the teachers. The aim of the study is to explore and problematise the impact of the reform by letting a group of first teachers in a small municipality give their view of their new position. How do the first teachers articulate their jurisdictional claims? How do they define a “highly skilled teacher”? The analysis is performed on spontaneous stories that emerged after sketching as a response to an open question: “Where are you in the school organization?” The theoretical frameworks used are discourse analysis according to the work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (1985), but I also draw upon the work of Andrew Abbott (1988) to describe how boundaries are created and upheld at work places. The two frameworks are chosen to highlight different aspects of the first teachers’ boundary work. Abbott enables the description of the arenas where the negotiation takes place, and the toolbox of Laclau and Mouffe provides the means to dissect the elements of the discourse.The results show that the first teachers’ definition of a “highly skilled teacher” is more concerned with what the teacher does than with the teacher’s qualities. The discourse consists of four elements. The key element is the position which enables the first teacher to operate at multiple layers of the organization. Together with the personal qualities there is a foundation for the function – to lead school development. The visible work legitimatizes the first teachers’ claim to jurisdiction, which gives admission to the position. The first teachers’ boundary work is primarily directed ‘upwards’. They express a need for support from their principals and limits for the work they are asked to perform, but at the same time they claim access to school developing tasks.The study points at the tension that has been built into the Swedish school system after decades of politically motivated reforms, and it highlights the need for possibilities to career development for all teachers.

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One of the challenges facing community colleges in the United States is the looming retirements of executive/senior-level leadership, particularly the president, on a wide scale. This study explored the career aspirations of executive-level leaders within the community college using Social Cognitive Career Theory as the conceptual framework. Within the context of a three-person collaborative dissertation project, a mixed methods case study approach was utilized for the research design. It first examined the perceived and preferred organizational culture(s) by administering the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI). Building upon results of the OCAI, interviews with executive-level leaders explored how personal and institutional factors impact their aspirations of to ascend to the community college presidency. The findings of the research indicate that affecting change, being asked, and the desire to help are personal factors of influence that motivate executive-level leaders to seek the role of community college president. On the other hand, age, family, and potential work-life imbalance might dissuade executive-level leaders from seeking this role. The study reveals that organizational culture (the “culture of caring”) and leadership development are positive factors of institutional influence. Institutional factors that dissuade executive-level leaders from seeking the community college presidency are politics, the state of the institution being led, and the unknown. This study advances the field of educational leadership in that a number of personal and institutional factors are adduced that influence the aspirations of executive-level leaders to progress to the community college presidency. The findings identify the need for research across multiple institutions and the need to expand Social Cognitive Career Theory to include personal-cognitive barriers of race and gender.

Today there is an increased demand for secondary agriculture education programs to prepare students to be college and career ready through a program of study. The purpose of this study was to identify risk and protective factors of preparatory and non-preparatory students within an agriculture education program at Anderson County High School in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. The results of this study did not determine that there was a difference in risk and protective factors between preparatory and non-preparatory students within agriculture education courses. The study concluded that students among both categories were equally exposed to risks such as family conflict and peers that abused alcohol and/or drugs. The study also concluded that both preparatory and non-preparatory students could benefit from increased protective factors such as understanding the relevance of coursework within agriculture education courses, increased parent involvement in schoolwork, and having contact with peers who are involved in CTSO’s such as the FFA. It is recommended that agriculture education researchers at post-secondary institutions conduct further research on retention within career pathways from various theoretical frameworks.

Submitted by Silvania Ribas (silvania@mackenzie.br) on 2018-06-21T14:19:09Z No. of bitstreams: 2 ANDREIA CARDOSO.pdf: 1668002 bytes, checksum: 2dcbfa2f400f9fb7344c8f3dd72b137d (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Giovanna Brasil (1154060@mackenzie.br) on 2018-06-26T00:22:36Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 ANDREIA CARDOSO.pdf: 1668002 bytes, checksum: 2dcbfa2f400f9fb7344c8f3dd72b137d (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-26T00:22:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 ANDREIA CARDOSO.pdf: 1668002 bytes, checksum: 2dcbfa2f400f9fb7344c8f3dd72b137d (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-08-24 / The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector is an environment hegemonically male and reflects the low proportion of women in undergraduate courses in the areas as Engineering, Computer and Technology. In this scenario, the question is whether women find more barriers to career advancement in the ICT sector. The glass ceiling is defined as a transparent and strong barrier that could prevent woman to ascend position in organizations. The researches related woman career advancement in organizations mostly address their perceptions regarding the main barriers they face due to the glass ceiling, such as prejudice, discrimination, stereotype, female leadership, conflict between career, family, and motherhood. In a search in the literature, no studies were found related to the woman attitudes toward the glass ceiling in ICT section, which stimulated the development of the following research problem: What is the relationship between the constant coexistence in academic and professional of women in male-dominated environment and their attitudes towards glass ceiling? The leaving in environments with male predominance was analyzed considering the following context variables: working in ICT area, male predominant working group composition, and under graduation in Engineering, Computer, and Technology areas. A quantitative research was carried out with the application of the Career Pathways Survey (CPS) questionnaire to women in all functions and hierarchical levels, who work in two multinational companies from ICT sector in Brazil. The research results showed that on the contrary to what was raised by the theories, no relations were found between the coexistence in predominantly male environments and woman attitudes towards the glass ceiling. However, it has been identified that women tend to have more favorable attitudes in pursuing promotion. In other words, even living in predominantly male environments, they still look for stop for climbing up the ladder toward promotion and professional ascension. / O setor de Tecnologia de Informação e Comunicação (TIC) é um setor composto, em sua maioria, por homens, fato que decorre da baixa proporção de mulheres em cursos de graduação nas áreas de Ciências Exatas. Diante desse cenário, questiona-se se as mulheres encontram mais barreiras para ascender na carreira profissional na área de TIC. O teto de vidro é definido como uma barreira transparente e forte que impede a ascensão das mulheres nas organizações. Os estudos relacionados à ascensão na carreira das mulheres nas organizações abordam, em sua maioria, as suas percepções com relação às principais barreiras que compõem o teto de vidro, como o preconceito, a discriminação, o estereótipo, a capacidade de liderança feminina, o conflito entre trabalho e família, e a questão da maternidade. Em um levantamento realizado na literatura, não foram encontrados estudos sobre as atitudes das mulheres em relação ao teto de vidro na área de Tecnologia de Informação e Comunicação, fato que estimulou a elaboração do seguinte problema de pesquisa: qual a relação entre a convivência acadêmica e profissional das mulheres em ambientes com predominância masculina, e as suas atitudes com relação ao teto de vidro? A convivência em ambientes com predominância masculina foi analisada diante das seguintes variáveis de contexto: atuação em área de TIC, composição do grupo de trabalho majoritariamente masculino, e área de formação acadêmica em Ciências Exatas e Engenharia. Foi realizada uma pesquisa de orientação quantitativa, com a aplicação do questionário Career Pathways Survey (CPS), com mulheres em todas as funções e níveis hierárquicos, que atuam em duas empresas multinacionais da área de Tecnologia de Informação e Comunicação no Brasil. Ao verificar os resultados da pesquisa, ao contrário do que foi levantado pelo referencial teórico, não foram encontradas relações entre a convivência em ambientes predominantemente masculinos e suas atitudes com relação ao teto de vidro. Contudo, foi identificado que as mulheres apresentam atitudes mais favoráveis à busca de ascensão na carreira, ou seja, mesmo convivendo em ambientes predominantemente masculinos elas não deixam de buscar promoções e ascensão profissional.

The push to redesign America’s failing schools is in high gear. With the ever-changing landscape of the 21st century global economy, students face a demand to be much more highly skilled entering the workforce. The focus of Topnotch School District is to prepare students in the areas of math, science, and communication skills in order to ensure them a competitive position in the job market. The district will design its course of study to engage students and motivate them to stay in school. The Mississippi Department of Education began an initiative called the 21st Century School Redesign in 2006. The focus of this initiative was to prepare students to compete in the global workforce. With outsourcing of jobs to other countries increasing, the competition for jobs is immense. Students who choose not to go to college must obtain the skills necessary to compete for the higher skilled positions available. Those who do choose to attend college must have the skills necessary to be successful also. The Mississippi Department of Education used a competitive grant process to choose 13 school districts in Phase I of the redesign initiative. Phase II of the redesign initiative saw 19 additional school districts brought on board. This study focused on Topnotch School District, which entered the redesign initiative in Phase II. The study was designed to understand the issues of the initiative that the administration team faced in the implementation process. In this study, formal interviews and casual conversations were used along with archival documents to determine the issues faced by building principals, central office personnel, business managers, technology coordinators, and vocational directors during the implementation of the initiative. The results of this study suggest that there is a lack of knowledge of redesign on the part of the administrative team. The results also show that communication throughout the process is crucial to success. Additionally, the system and procedures of reimbursement and asset management were questionable and led to a number of mistakes.

Redesigning High Schools for the 21st century became a goal of the Mississippi Department of Education in 2006. The focus of redesign is to ensure that students gain the knowledge necessary to compete in the technological world they will enter after high school graduation. Students who choose not to go to college are to leave high school with the skills that have prepared them for employment. The redesign process incorporates classes of technology in grades 7–9. Grade 7 students will be involved in Information and Communication Technology I. Information and Communication Technology II will include eighth-grade students. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) courses will be added to the ninth-grade curriculum. During the second year of implementation, Career and Technical Education (CTE) classes will be converted to Career Pathway classes for students in the 10th grade. Using a competitive grant application process, 13 school districts were chosen to participate in Phase I of Redesign. In the second year of implementation, 19 school districts were chosen to begin Phase II of the redesign initiative. This study focuses on the Alcoville School District (a pseudonym), which was chosen as a Phase II school. The purpose of this study was to understand the issues of redesign that were faced by the teachers involved in the implementation process. Emphasis was placed on the knowledge the teachers had of the redesign implementation in this district and the problems they faced as implementation occurred. The results of this study suggested that teachers (a) wanted to be more involved in the planning of redesign, (b) thought there was a lack of training, (c) were concerned with the lack of knowledge of their trainers, (d) were concerned with the difficulty of the curriculum, (e) stated there was no follow-up training offered from the Research and Curriculum Unit (RCU) at Mississippi State University, (f) reported that the RCU was not able to answer their questions, (g) stated there was not a network of Phase I teachers with whom to talk, and (h) reported that the administration did not understand their curriculum or show concern with what they were teaching.