Purpose. The purpose of this study was to describe and evaluate the career counseling practices in all schools of engineering in the United States with ABET-accredited engineering Cooperative Education programs. Procedure. A thirty-two item questionnaire was developed and sent out to all ABET-accredited Cooperative Education offices. All the engineering coordinators in each office filled out the questionnaire. Eighty-six percent of the schools responded to the surveys. Findings. (1) Most engineering Co-op coordinators have educational backgrounds in engineering and have taken at least one class in career counseling. (2) Co-op coordinators tend to have caseloads and other responsibilities which restrict the amount of career counseling they can offer. (3) Little correlation exists between the amount of time coordinators spend career counseling and the ability of students to obtain jobs. (4) There is a slight negative correlation between coordinators' caseloads and their placement rate. (5) There is a slight positive correlation between coordinators' caseloads and the amount of time their students receive in career counseling. (6) There is a slight positive correlation between coordinators' caseloads and the amount of time they believe students should receive in career counseling. (7) There is no correlation between the total amount of time students receive in career counseling and their ability to secure Co-op jobs. (8) There are very slight positive correlations between the amount of time students receive in seven of eighteen specified career counseling services and their ability to get a Co-op job. Conclusions. The average coordinator was found to have a career counseling training level of one class. Many slight correlations were found between the amount of career counseling which students receive and their ability to secure Co-op employment. It was also found that coordinators with average amounts of career counseling training tend to spend the most time in career counseling services. Recommendations. (1) Similar studies should be conducted with engineering Co-op programs which were not necessarily accredited by ABET, and non-engineering Co-op programs. (2) It would also be of interest to correlate time spent career counseling with other measures of "success" such as cost-effectiveness, and student satisfaction.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:pacific.edu/oai:scholarlycommons.pacific.edu:uop_etds-4317 |
| Date | 01 January 1986 |
| Creators | Martin, Gary Richard |
| Publisher | Scholarly Commons |
| Source Sets | University of the Pacific |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations |
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