This study was undertaken to discover which determinants led Massachusetts regional vocational technical high school students to choose nontraditional occupations by examining two populations: (a) all of the nontraditional students enrolled in the 26 Massachusetts regional vocational technical schools, of which 19 schools participated, and (b) one of each student's parents or guardians. Two survey instruments were used of which the first 15 items were questions directed to the nontraditional student or the parent/guardian. The last 10 items were reasons that may have led the student to a nontraditional choice, the importance of which were determined by the student and the parent/guardian. All the responses were subjected to a frequency distribution analysis, and the last 10 items were subjected to the chi-square test to determine relationships existing between variables of the student and of the parent/guardian to each of the reasons. The student variables were gender of student, vocational experience of a student's sibling/s, and participation in an exploratory program. The parent/guardian variables were educational level, employment status, and economic status. Findings revealed that the following determinants were important to the nontraditional choice: career opportunity of the program, interest in the subject, and exploratory programs and their teachers. There were significant positive relationships (p = $\leq$.01) between the student variable "Participation in an exploratory program" and the following: "The exploratory program made me interested in the career" and "Teachers in the exploratory program were great." There was only one significant relationship between the parent/guardian variables and their view of the importance of the reasons for the nontraditional choice, and it was a positive relationship (p = $\leq$.05). This variable was "Employment status" and the reason for the choice was "The program seemed easy." Regardless of the employment status of the parent or guardian, most respondents believed the reason was not important to the nontraditional choice. Based on these findings, it was concluded that exploratory programs for all the courses offered by the schools should be presented to every new student and that the teachers of these exploratory programs should be chosen with great care.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-8990 |
| Date | 01 January 1994 |
| Creators | D'Amico, Attilio Alfred |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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