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Community college career and technical education programs struggle with meeting federallyunded Perkins performance measures. To address this need the 30-45-60 program design was developed. The study purpose was to determine if the 30-45-60 program design influenced career certificate, technical certificate or Associate of Applied Science degree completion rates, technical skill attainment, and job placement rates for students enrolled in the welding, precision machining and manufacturing and electrical technology programs. A Chi-square test of independence indicated no significantly significant relationship between the 30-45-60 program design and completion of a certificate or degree (p = .222). A closer look revealed no significantly significant relationship between the 30-45-60 program design and the career certificate (p = .392) or the Associate of Applied Science degree (.576) but was statistically significant for technical certificate (p = .000). A statistically significant relationship was found for technical skill attainment (p =.038) and job placement (p = .000).

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A gap in the literature exists on the connection between an individual's career and non-career domains. Even less research exists on the topic of career development and how it relates to an individual's mental health. Accordingly, this study sought to investigate the connection between career issues and mental health by exploring the psychological distress levels of students enrolled in a career exploration course. During the course, students completed a bi-weekly online survey, the Outcome Questionnaire (OQ-45). Results support the possible connection between career issues and mental health and also show that for certain populations, career guidance interventions may decrease an individual's psychological distress.

Undersökningsområdet i detta examensarbete är karriärcoaching och studie- och yrkesvägledning. Inom dessa båda yrken undersöks flera aspekter som exempelvis den historiska bakgrunden, vilka samtalsmetoder som används och på vilket sätt yrkesverksamma vägledare och karriärcoacher arbetar. Likheter och skillnader undersöks också, detta för att få kunskap om huruvida det kan finnas en konkurrens mellan yrkesgrupperna på arbetsmarknaden men också för att uppmärksamma eventuella möjligheter till samarbete. Vi har genomfört en enkätundersökning med 115 studenter på studie- och yrkesvägledarprogrammet vid Malmö högskola samt gjort intervjuer med yrkesverksamma personer inom både vägledning och karriärcoaching. Syftet med enkätundersökningen var att få en uppfattning om hur mycket kunskap som fanns kring karriärcoaching hos dessa studenter och om de önskade få mer kunskap i området. Ambitionen med intervjuundersökningen var att ge en så täckande bild som möjligt av de båda yrkesområdena. Resultatet visar på både skillnader och likheter mellan yrkena och att det finns en möjlig konkurrenssituation men även möjligheter till samarbete.

According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), innovation that accompanies careers in science, technology engineering, and math (STEM) create a driving force in the economy and the creation of jobs, yet many positions remain open due to the lack of qualified individuals to fill them (NAS, 2011). Continuing research and innovation proves to be important, yet not enough students graduate with STEM degrees and enter into STEM careers. Career planning courses for undergraduate students increase student confidence about their abilities to make career decisions (Grier-Reed & Skaar, 2010: Scott & Ciani 2008). Vocational maturity and career decision making skills also improve as a result of these courses (Reese & Miller, 2006; Scott & Ciani, 2008). Although research provides evidence of the impact of career planning courses that are specific to certain disciplines (Heffner, Macera & Cohen, 2006), the need for research exists on examining the role career planning courses have in STEM recruitment and retention. This study aimed to investigate the influence of career development intervention in STEM recruitment and retention efforts by examining career decidedness, career thoughts and vocational maturity. Furthermore, the influence of the class was examined by using demographics such as gender, ethnicity, SAT scores, and algebra math placements scores. The Career Development Inventory (CDI) and Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI) provided measures of career thoughts, career decidedness and vocational maturity for this study. The results provided clarity as to the influence of the career planning course. Vocational maturity and career decidedness increase by the end of the career planning course and negative career thoughts decreased. Implications of the findings include counselor education, career development, practice and future research. In a time when billions of dollars are spent on STEM initiative, the iv current study provided an economically viable career development STEM initiative. The research reveals millions are dollars invested into updating lab equipment, purchasing new materials for students, and training teachers. The current study utilized a career planning course allowing students to explore their likes, dislikes, and abilities and how the aforementioned are connected to career interests. This study also provides insight into how the STEM effort can more specifically recruit students who will excel in STEM disciplines.

This phenomenological study explores the lived experiences of five individuals who shifted their work and career from the business world to the nonprofit service sector. Through in-depth personal accounts, I show how the research participants made sense of "work" and "career" as they moved through, and after they completed the transition out of the business setting; and the degree to which their subjective experiences in the nonprofit work environment transformed their prior perspectives on "work life" and "career" that had been shaped by their experiences in the business world. According to the literature of subjective career development (how people shape their personal identity through their work over a lifetime) and transformative learning (how people change their worldview perspective to accommodate significant changes in their life circumstances), people who shift from business careers to nonprofit jobs are likely to be confounded by certain realities in the nonprofit world that cannot be readily understood or explained through past experience in the business workplace. The real-life personal stories of five such career shifters manifest clear differences in the "discourse of work and career" across the two sectors, resulting in an apparent disorienting paradox between the profit-driven "business mindset" (where the fundamental motivation is survival of the enterprise and objective personal advancement) and the mission-driven "nonprofit worldview" (where the fundamental motivation is service for a better world and subjective personal meaning-making). An analysis of these paradoxes of discourse suggests that the mission-driven nonprofit discourse ("we work for a better world") offers a valuable and constructive counterpoint to the more dominant enterprise-driven business discourse ("we work to sustain the company") that pervades the organizational landscape of our society. The implications of these findings as reviewed in the last chapter are significant for policy, practice and research in both nonprofit management and business organizational development. The work concludes with the suggestion that the nonprofit mindset opens the possibility for re-orienting one's "career" to a life-long process of self-actualization, where one works to find meaning and purpose through making a difference toward improving quality of life for a better world.

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No description available.