Georgia established the Dual Enrollment Accelerated Career Diploma (ACD) program in 2015 to address its skilled trades workforce shortage (Dual Enrollment Act, 2015: Williams, 2015). ACD allows high school students to earn their diplomas by replacing several of their graduation-required credits with technical college credentials earned through…

Teachers entered the field of education with varied educational experiences that left many first-year teachers feeling unprepared to lead their classrooms successfully. The quantitative study aimed to determine how and to what extent teachers perceived their preparedness as first-year teachers in classroom management, curriculum and planning, and…

Soft skill acquisition is a topic of career readiness for high school students. Soft skills are known as noncognitive skills, life skills, or people skills and are important to develop in high school students for career readiness. Organizational leaders understand technical and professional skills without developed soft skills do not achieve…

This study sought to investigate how students access and how teachers foster creativity in the curriculum and find solutions to student and teacher disengagement with creative alternatives to traditional assignments and assessments at a public school in the Northeast of the United States. The inability of many public school teachers to properly…

Nationally, the labor market is calling out for workers to fill the increasing number of job vacancies, but those qualified, skilled, and able to fill them are limited in supply or retiring in large numbers. As America's key industries offer high salaries in return for candidates with the necessary skills and credentials to fill their vacancies,…

The purpose of this study was to better understand the extent to which a Public Charter High School and a Two-Year Community College leveraged their partnership and committed resources towards expanding access to concurrent credit career and technical education programs. The goal of this partnership was to invest in the human capital of high…

Since its introduction in the early 1900s, the codification of vocational education has made explicit that one purpose of the American public education system should be preparation for the workforce. Over three-quarters of high school students participate in present-day career and technical education, nearly half of undergraduate degrees conferred…

This dissertation aimed to address existing research gaps in the understanding of "tech social capital" amongst Black and Latino/Hispanic high school students in afterschool computer science education programs. The research employed an exploratory mixed methods approach, with afterschool high school coding program Code Next as its sample…

Evidence today shows that there is a skills gap among employable young adults. This study was based on a Career and Technical Education (CTE) program evaluation that was conducted in a rural school district in northwest North Carolina. The study examined the perceptions of the program by CTE high school teachers, CTE community college instructors,…

Career Technical Education (CTE) at the high school level is a sequence of courses that prepares students with the academic and technical knowledge and skills needed to either continue their studies or enter the workforce after high school (Gray & Lewis, 2018). While there is research regarding how high school CTE programs support academics,…

With the demands on schools to prepare its students to be globally competitive in the 21st century, schools are forced to examine new ways to meet those demands. One of the new reform ideas is that of restructuring traditional high schools into small schools within schools. Through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the North Carolina…

There is growing apprehension among business people, educators, and government policy makers regarding the gap between the skills and knowledge needed for success in the workforce and those provided in school. The purpose of this qualitative evaluative case study was to investigate the effectiveness of project-based learning (PBL) in the…

The purpose of this participatory action research was to create a comprehensive evaluation of advanced geoscience education in Pennsylvania public high schools and to ascertain the possible impact of this trend on student perceptions and attitudes towards the geosciences as a legitimate academic subject and possible career option. The study builds…

This single-case study utilized the data from a successful career and technical education (CTE) program at a public high school in southwest Texas. The CTE program selected addresses the needs of an at-risk student population in a public school district in southwest Texas whose student population was primarily Mexican American. The opportunity to…

Interest in whether real-world problems or a service learning context increases students' academic performance and intent to find careers in engineering is gaining momentum. The belief that diverse student populations resonate with the idea that "engineers can contribute to improving society" is found throughout the literature,…