This study explored both the relationship between coping resources (as measured by the Coping Resources Inventory) and psychological career resources (as measured by the Psychological Career Resources Inventory) and also whether individuals from different gender and employment status groups (part-time work experience versus no work experience) differ significantly regarding their coping resources and psychological career resources. A cross-sectional survey design and quantitative statistical procedures were used to analyse the data which was obtained from a purposive non-probability sample of N = 197 early career unemployed, black graduates. The results showed significant positive associations between psychological career resources and coping resources. It also emerged that the male and female participants differed significantly with regard to their emotional, spiritual and physical coping resources and the psychological career resources of career harmonisers and career drivers. In addition, it was found that those participants who had part-time work experience displayed a significantly higher need for career venturing and also manifested higher behavioural adaptability than those who had no work experience. Recommendations for future research and practice were made. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M.A. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

This study, largely based on literature review supplemented with information from lectures and interviews, attempts to give guidelines and make recommendations on how the gap between the school and the working world can be narrowed in South Africa to improve the employability of school-leavers. Chapter One involves the identification of the problem to be investigated. Chapter Two defines the economic role and function of the school in society in the light of different theories and practices. The present state of education in South Africa, with specific focus on how it relates to the working world, is examined in Chapter Three. Chapter Four examines the relationship between schooling and the working world in selected countries. Chapter Five proposes some guidelines and recommendations for the closer integration of the school with the world of work in South Africa. Chapter Six deals with final conclusions, new perspectives and guidelines for future research. / Educational Studies / M. Ed.

The purpose of the study was to find out about provision of guidance and counselling in the schools in the Transkei sub-region of the Eastern Cape. Guidance and counselling services are crucial to the success of lifelong learning policies, providing assistance and advice to learners so that they make better informed and future educational and career choices suitable for them. Through guidance and counseling services, students develop a clear understanding of self, their attitudes, abilities, interests, ambitions, resources and limitations from career counselling. They are also guided into various entrepreneurial activities, training, advancement and other benefits for sustainable self-reliance and self-worth. Students are able to achieve and live fulfilled lives and contribute meaningfully to the development of their country in all spheres of life once they receive appropriate guidance and counselling services. Guidance and counseling services look at the holistic development of the learner by taking into account the psycho-social, intellectual, emotional and physical development aspects of the learner within the context of the learner’s environment. The provision of guidance and counselling programmes and services is the shared responsibility of all school staff. A team approach should be employed, wherein all staff members have specified roles to play. School counsellors play a key role in planning and implementing programmes and service. Guidance and counselling programmes and services are systematically planned to meet the needs of all learners and are infused into the daily activities of schools. Using a quantitative research design, the research sample included Department of Education (DoE) Officials and teachers in seven districts in the Transkei sub-region of the Eastern Cape. Questionnaires were used to collect data. Descriptive statistics in were used to analyse the provision of guidance and counselling in the schools in the Transkei sub-region of the Eastern Cape. The results revealed that guidance and counselling is necessary in schools and that it should be provided in all schools in the districts. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Specialisation in Guidance and Counselling)

This study aims to deepen knowledge of young people with a migration background in Sweden, particularly those with non-European backgrounds, and their transitions from school to work. The focus is on young people with uncompleted upper secondary education (USE), drawing on their life stories, and exploring their perceptions and experiences around school failure, entering the labour market, and/or not being in education, employment or training (NEET). Theoretically the study analyses individuals’ career decisions from an agency-structure perspective, drawing on careership theory, in particular the notions of pragmatic-rational choices, routines, turning-points and horizons of action (Hodkinson & Sparkes 1997), combined with theories on ‘otherness’ (Hall 1990; 1999, Anthias 2002, Balibar 2004, Trondman 2007), and the notion of socio-geographic space (Bourdieu 1986a; Bourdieu 1999, Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1996). Methodologically, the thesis is based on narrative research, and the empirical material comprise life stories of twenty young people (men and women) about their lives, school experiences and time after leaving school. The careers of the young people were developed in fields where they had subordinate positions, based on their family’s mostly limited social, economic and cultural capital, their own short education and limited experience, and the otherness they encoun­tered. Against this background, their educational and labour market career choices are under­stood as pragmatic-rational, enabled and limited by the resulting horizons of action. However, the collected nar­ra­tives suggest that their horizons of action developed from the time they left school when they made different pragmatic-rational choices that changed their posi­tions. Nevertheless, career choices were often made within a bounded agency and reduced op­por­tunities as a consequence of school failure and their own scarce resources. The learning and interaction taking place within the routine periods are both crucial for understanding processes that result in school failure and the subsequent extend­ed period of establishment in working and adult life, and change of horizons of action and habitus. The narratives of the young people showed that school failures and dropout are com­plex and extended processes that are related to education and family, as well as access to power and capital. They also encountered difference-making through the predominant images and discourses of 'immigration' as a social problem and by being located in a specific socio-geo­graphic space that limited their possibilities for action. The family was highly significant and, in most cases, represented security and continuity. The family’s present situation and future was crucial to the young adults, which affected their choices. Hence, their own horizon of action also included the family’s opportunities and horizon of action. The study indicates that there is sometimes reason to speak of a collective horizon of action rather than just an individual one. Institutional and informal support together with young people’s agency may enable positive career development in spite of a lack of resources provided to the young, particularly if schools and other institu­tions would provide more professional and timely support. The overall conclusion is that it would not have taken much investment of resources and effort to have prevented school failure for a large proportion of the twenty young adults in this study. That is the good news. / Osäkra övergångar. Unga utan fullständig gymnasieutbildning: vägarna och åtgärderna i longitudinellt perspektiv

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

Text in English / In its proposal of a communication strategy that will be of use as an enabling tool for increasing graduate employment potential, this study contributes uniquely to the discipline of communication. It envisages that communication takes into consideration the involvement of the key stakeholders, namely: government, labour market, education system, and media. Amid unemployment challenges that affect the majority of the population, media is regarded as a powerful tool to reach the majority of the population. With specific regard to graduate unemployment, media-driven interaction with unemployed graduates is not as efficient as it should be. Factors contributing to graduate unemployment are identified as career choices, skills shortage, job opportunities, career development, work experience, skills development, entrepreneurial skills, internships, and access to the labour market. It is also important to note that media is regarded as tool for disseminating information about such factors. In order to address this problem, the study establishes an integrated communication strategy that will be of use as an enabling tool for increasing the potential of graduate employment. The role of such communication could be applicable in various ways, such as organisational communication, business communication, public communication, personal communication, interpersonal communication, etc. This study locates itself in the domain of public communication because information about unemployment issues is a matter of public concern. This study adopts mixed research methodologies, with a survey research design—in order to gather data from the graduate students at a University of Technology. The study found that while social and print media are highly preferred and used due to their accessibility, there is a need to stress their use with regard to employment search. The main concepts that contributed to the establishment of the strategy included strategic communication, unemployment and media. It must be here noted that, for purposes of this study, strategic communication was informed by a confluence of the constitutive model of communication, systems theory, and situational theory of publics. The phenomenon of unemployment is informed by unemployment approaches, on the one hand, and the Maslow theory of needs, on the other. Furthermore, the understanding of the concept of media is informed by mass communication approaches and media richness theory. This thesis expects that, as an outcome, such a communication strategy would increase graduate employment potential. Public relations planning model is applied in the study in order to guide the implementation of the proposed communication strategy. / Communication Science / D. Litt. et Phil. (Communication Science)

本研究旨在探討新北市完全中學兼任行政工作教師人格特質、工作壓力與憂鬱傾向之關係，以新北市400位完全中學兼任行政工作教師為研究對象，回收有效問卷389份。本研究工具為「性格自評量表」、「工作壓力量表」及「身心健康量表」。以描述性統計、T檢定、單因子變異數分析、皮爾遜績差相關及多元逐步迴歸分析等方法，進行統計分析。主要研究結果如下： 1.新北市完全中學兼任行政工作教師的整體憂鬱傾向屬於中等偏低程度。 2.新北市完全中學兼任行政工作教師不同性別、不同年齡、不同婚姻狀況及不同兼行政服務年資的憂鬱傾向有顯著差異存在。 3.不同性別、不同年齡、不同婚姻狀況、不同兼行政服務年資、不同行政職務及不同學校規模之新北市完全中學兼任行政工作教師的「神經質」人格特質與其「整體工作壓力」間均有顯著相關。 4.不同性別、不同年齡、不同婚姻狀況、不同兼行政服務年資、不同行政職務及不同學校規模之新北市完全中學兼任行政工作教師的「神經質」人格特質與其 「憂鬱傾向」間均有顯著相關。 5.「神經質」人格特質、「上級要求」工作壓力、「和善性」人格特質及「工作負荷」工作壓力，可以有效預測整體新北市完全中學兼任行政工作教師的「憂鬱傾向」，解釋的總變異量為51.4%。 6.「神經質」人格特質可以有效預測不同性別、不同年齡、不同婚姻狀況、不同兼行政服務年資、不同行政職務及中大型學校規模新北市完全中學兼任行政工作教師的「憂鬱傾向」。 7.「人際關係」工作壓力可以有效預測兼行政服務年資第2至5年、擔任圖書館行政職務及中型學校規模新北市完全中學兼任行政工作教師的「憂鬱傾向」。 8.「上級要求」工作壓力可以有效預測35歲以下及擔任教務處行政職務新北市完全中學兼任行政工作教師的「憂鬱傾向」。 9.「和善性」人格特質可以有效預測小型學校規模新北市完全中學兼任行政工作教師的「憂鬱傾向」。 10.「嚴謹自律性」人格特質可以有效預測兼行政服務年資第6至10年新北市完全中學兼任行政工作教師的「憂鬱傾向」。 11.「聰穎開放性」人格特質可以有效預測擔任學務處行政職務新北市完全中學兼任行政工作教師的「憂鬱傾向」。 本研究依據上述結果加以討論，並分別對完全中學兼任行政工作教師、學校、教育行政主管機關及未來研究提出相關建議。 / The purpose of this study is to understand the relationships between personality traits,work stress and depressive tendencies of the teachers work part-time administration in New Taipei City six-year high school.This study samples have 400 the teachers with administrative position in New Taipei City six-year high school,and 389 valid questionnaires are collected.The research tools used are:”Character self-assessment scale”,”Work stress scale”,and” Mental health scale”.The data was analyzed by descriptive statistics,t-test,One-way analysis of variance,Pearson’s correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis.The major results of the study are as follows. 1.Work part-time administration in New Taipei City six-year high school teachers’ depressive tendencies is in the medium low degree. 2.New Taipei City six-year high school teachers work part-time administration of different gender, age, marital status and years of service in different chief executive of depression tend to have significant differences 3.Different gender, age, marital status, different years of service and chief executive, different administrative duties and the New Taipei City six-year high school teachers work part-time administrative "neurotic" personality "overall pressure" were significantly associated therewith. 4. Different gender and age, marital status, different years of service and chief executive, different administrative duties and the New Taipei City six-year high school teachers work part-time administrative "neurotic" personality with its "depressive tendencies" were significantly associated therewith. 5. "Neurotic" personality, "the higher level" work pressure, "kind" personality and "work load" pressure of work, can predict a whole New Taipei City six-year high school teachers work part-time administrative "melancholy tendencies," explained the total varianceIt was 51.4%. 6. "Neurotic" personality traits can predict different gender, age, marital status, different years of service and administration, administrative duties and in different large-scale New Taipei City six-year high school teachers work part-time administrative "melancholy tendency." 7."Interpersonal" work pressure can effectively predict and Chief Executive of service of the first 2-5 years as library administrative duties and medium-scale New Taipei City six-year high school teachers work part-time administrative "melancholy tendency." 8."Higher level" job stress can predict the age of 35 and held executive positions with the New Taipei City six-year high school teachers work part-time administrative "melancholy tendency." 9."kind" personality traits can predict the size of a small New Taipei City six-year high school part-time administrative work teachers' tendency to depression. " 10."Rigorous self-discipline" personality traits can predict and Chief Executive of service of the first 6-10 years of the New Taipei City six-year high school teachers work part-time administrative "melancholy tendency." 11."Intelligent openness" personality traits can predict as the Student Affairs Office administrative duties entirely New Taipei City six-year high school teachers work part-time administrative "melancholy tendency." According to the results to discuss and provide several suggestions for the teachers work part-time administrative,schools,education administration,and future research.

The purpose of this study was to explore the current practices used by secondary educators (special education teachers and guidance counselors) and stand alone career and technical education (CTE) center teachers when working with students with disabilities from home high schools participating in secondary CTE programming. In addition, this study looked at the perceptions that each educational system (high school and secondary CTE) had in regards to need and responsibility when working with these shared students. Participants for this study included CTE teachers and administrators from stand alone CTE centers in the state of Indiana and secondary special education teachers and guidance counselors from high schools feeding into those centers. Study participants were provided a paper/pencil survey and asked to respond to survey questions using both Likert-type scale and forced choice questions. Demographic data were gathered that included gender, age, position, years in position, years in education, and current classroom/service delivery setting. Participants were asked to rate statements regarding the level and types of communication and collaboration that were taking place between CTE teachers and their respective high schools (special education teachers and guidance counselors). The study found that there was inconsistency in the methods that were used to share information about students with disabilities and who was responsible for providing that information. A relatively high percentage of respondents did not have any knowledge about how information was shared. The study also found that many respondents (CTE and secondary educators) did not feel regular communication took place between the two systems in regards to students with disabilities. Overall, this study found that the responses provided by CTE and secondary education (special education teachers and guidance counselors) were varied based upon respondents personal involvement or responsibility. Recommendations are made for both local and state follow-up to investigate how CTE and special education are communicating and collaborating on behalf of students with disabilities. Further research is needed in order to establish and implement more consistent practice and process related to communication and collaboration between CTE and high school personnel (special education). This study was exploratory, designed with a targeted sample (n = 131) that provides important results and useful insight that can be instructive for further conversation and research. / Department of Special Education

Concern about college and career readiness has been expressed in both the business and education arenas. Employers are calling for entry-level employees with basic academic skills and educators are being held accountable for student achievement in academic areas similar to those required by employers. In this environment, WorkKeys has emerged as a set of assessments that could respond to the needs of both employers and educators and serve as an indicator to test takers of their readiness for further education or a career. In Alaska, state policymakers selected WorkKeys for use with high school juniors in an effort to measure both college and career readiness, and statewide testing was implemented in the fall of 2010. While past studies involving WorkKeys have focused on assessment results related to workforce development, academic indicators, or demographic variables, the purpose of this study was to describe the college and career readiness perceptions of high school juniors related to the WorkKeys Reading for Information, Locating Information, and Applied Mathematics assessments. A survey administered to 178 urban high school juniors at the time they received their WorkKeys results gathered student perceptions of the WorkKeys assessments in general as well as perceptions of college and career readiness. The key findings of this study were that student perceptions of college and career readiness were much higher than the results of the assessments indicated, and students found value in using WorkKeys results for college and career planning. This suggested the assessment results would be useful in career development interventions with students. This was the first year of mandatory WorkKeys assessments in the state and further study is recommended to gather rural student perceptions, further explore factors that students believe make the assessments useful, and determine the influence of the assessments and related interventions on academic self-efficacy. / Graduation date: 2012

xvii, 123 p. : ill. (some col.) A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / Transition services for youth with disabilities are mandated by IDEA. Transition services are supported services that help individuals with disabilities move from special education in high school to employment, post-secondary education or vocational training in the adult world. Outcomes for youth with disabilities vary depending on culture, ethnicity, race, gender and socioeconomic status. Latino youth with disabilities experience poorer post-school outcomes than do white youth with disabilities. This study seeks to identify and describe the transition needs of youth with disabilities from Latino backgrounds who are transitioning from school to adulthood and therefore engaging in employment, post-secondary education or employment-related training. Through focus groups with Latino youth, their families, and the staff that serve them, I explored and identified the specific needs of this group with regards to receiving transition services. The findings of this study will guide the development of training for transition professionals in Oregon and will be disseminated to professionals in the field of transition across the country and around the world. / Committee in charge: Michael Bullis, Chairperson, Special Education and Clinical Sciences; Lauren Lindstrom, Member, Counseling Psychology and Human Services; Deborah Olson, Member, Special Education and Clinical Sciences; Spike Gildea, Outside Member, Linguistics