The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if the number of Career and Technical Education (CTE) graduates who go on to postsecondary education or some other training program, to the military, or to employment upon high school graduation was significant in comparison to the state baseline for secondary placement. This study further compared CTE graduation rates to overall graduation rates. The graduation rates were compared based on gender as well. School systems that provided CTE courses and that had CTE concentrators for the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 school years were used for this study. Eight school districts were chosen in the upper east Tennessee region and were evaluated using graduation data and secondary placement data from the Tennessee Department of Education Report Card.
The research cited in this study supported the supposition that CTE graduates do in fact help to increase the overall graduation rates for school districts. This study focused on five research questions and each null hypothesis was tested using a one-sample chi-square test.
Results indicated that there were positive significant differences for CTE concentrators who proceed to postsecondary education, military, and employment as compared to the state baseline for secondary placement. The study further revealed that the graduation rate for Tennessee CTE concentrators was higher than the overall graduation rate for the selected school districts in this study. Positive differences were also noted between the sample CTE graduation rate and the overall Tennessee CTE graduation rate as well as between those rates and the overall Tennessee graduation rate for all students. Further analysis revealed that no significant differences existed between male CTE graduates and female CTE graduates. The research findings suggested that CTE graduation rates can help improve a school district's overall graduation rate.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ETSU/oai:dc.etsu.edu:etd-2521 |
| Date | 17 August 2011 |
| Creators | Loveless, Melissa Ann |
| Publisher | Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University |
| Source Sets | East Tennessee State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright by the authors. |
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