The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how American vocational students describe personal, behavioral, and environmental factors that contribute to their career decisions in the state of Utah. According to the problem statement, it was not known how American vocational students describe the personal, behavioral, and…

Black male teachers comprise less than two percent of the teachers of color in education nationwide and even fewer than that teach in special education. There exists a paucity of research literature on the "invisible tax" placed upon them via the nuanced responsibilities, lived experiences, identities, and needs of Black male special…

This study examines factors that influence high school students' willingness to consider teaching as a career. Using predictive modeling, we identified five factors that are highly predictive of a students' willingness to consider teaching and their belief that teaching is their best career option. Results indicated that high school students were…

Nationwide, agricultural education has experienced a shortage of qualified school-based agriculture teachers for over four decades. Students who seek careers as agriculture teachers are often those who participated in agricultural education and FFA in high school. The Ag Ed FITChoice® Model (Lawver 2009; Lawver & Torres, 2012) was used as the…

A recent survey of 41 different state boards of education revealed that officials from 28 states indicate that they are experiencing teacher shortages. The shortages in some states are significant. While the teacher shortage in many states is tied to different factors, one frequently cited reason for leaving the teaching profession is low pay.…

This article describes community-university partnership building, course development/management, and evaluation outcomes related to an intensive community-based research project that was integrated in two sections of an undergraduate course on community practice. Pre- and posttest data were collected from 60 BSW students who were enrolled in…

The purpose of this study was to better understand sport management students within departments of parks, recreation, and tourism, and to address the often uneasy fit faculty experience when trying to educate sport and recreation students in the same classes. Researchers sent a 16-item online questionnaire to 1,337 undergraduate sport management…

This qualitative study examines the perspectives of high school-and college-age students who participated in an educational program designed to increase the number of Latino students entering teaching as a profession: Latino Educators of Tomorrow. Using open-ended surveys and semistructured interviews, this study identified themes regarding the…

Although previous literature has discussed ways of promoting the study of Portuguese, to our knowledge no study has ever directly surveyed students to ascertain why they chose to learn the language. This study reports on a survey of the motivations of first- and second-year Portuguese students to study the language, and contrasts their motivations…

Providing information and resources to support career exploration is key to the mission of career and technical education (CTE) in Utah. Utah CTE has responded in a variety of ways to meet the career exploration needs of students of all ages. This article discusses how the career and technical education in Utah delivers opportunities for career…

The objective of this study was to evaluate grade 9-12 students' motivation while engaged in two different engineering design projects: marble-sorter and bridge designs. The motivation components measured in this study were focused on students' intrinsic (IGO) and extrinsic (EGO) goal orientations, task value (TV), self-efficacy for learning and…

Surveyed 153 rural teachers based in eastern-central Utah to measure eight career orientations (security, technical/functional, managerial competence, creativity, autonomy, identity, service, and variety). Suggests organizations need to appreciate differences among teachers, and that rural teachers leave the profession due to a bad match between…

A 38-item questionnaire designed to collect data on 5 career anchors (security, technical/functional competence, managerial competence, creativity, and autonomy) and 3 career drives (identity, service, and variety) was administered to 153 rural educators in eastern-central Utah. Using a factor analytic approach to ascertain the internal validity…

This qualitative study explored factors that helped veteran public school health educators sustain enthusiasm in the classroom throughout their careers. Twelve Caucasian participants, seven men and five women with 18 to 28 years of public school teaching experience (mean age = 49 years, mean experience = 24 years), were interviewed. Participants…

A study was made of the impact of nonsexist toys and games on the occupational aspirations and attitudes of kindergarten and fourth-grade children. It was hypothesized that children who play with toys and games that suggest "non-sex-biased" career options would be less likely to hold to traditional occupational expectations. Children in…