Postsecondary career and technical institutions are required to follow a set list of performance
indicators in order to receive federal Carl Perkins funding (Perkins IV Accountability, 2009).
Within those indicators includes measuring technical skills attainment, which the state of
Mississippi chooses to utilize program-specific standardized assessments known as the MS-
CPAS2 assessment. The purpose of this multi-site program evaluation was to determine which
programs are meeting the assessment passing requirements and to determine how they are
achieving success. The rationale for this study was to evaluate the components inherent in
successful programs in order to aid other programs who may not be performing as well in the
assessment reach the minimum requirements in order to secure federal funding. Qualitative and
quantitative methods were utilized for both raw data provided by the RCU and survey data
collected by the researcher from the faculty and administrator participants of the selected
programs. Results of this study indicated components of successful programs, perceptions of the
assessment by the participants, and student factors that influence the assessment scores.
Components included small class sizes, having necessary equipment, program-specific software,
computers, providing a well-rounded instructional environment, aligning materials with
curriculum, the use of hands-on activities, participation in clubs/organizations, and integrating
program-specific certifications. Perceptions included a need for instructor participation in the
update process of the MS-CPAS2 assessment, student accountability by offering student
preparatory courses, and student recognition for outstanding scores. Student factors that affected
assessment scores included ethnicity and student rating. Recommendations were made by the
researcher from the results of the analysis that included multiple program improvement plans that
can be utilized as a how-to guide by faculty and administrators, and assessment improvement
plans for the RCU as provided by the participants responses from the survey data.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-11162010-100024 |
| Date | 19 November 2010 |
| Creators | Tynes, Kimberly |
| Contributors | Roider, Emerald M., Mitchell, Roland W., MacGregor, S. Kim, Bourke, Brian David, Redmann, Donna H. |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-11162010-100024/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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