California's education system--the largest in the United States--is an essential resource for ensuring strong economic growth in the state. The Career Technical Education Pathways Initiative (the Initiative) became law in 2005 with Senate Bills 70 and 1133 and provided more than $380 million over eight years to improve career technical education…

This qualitative study explores career counseling and guidance services as provided to students engaged in career and technical education programs at three sites in the United States. The sites, consisting of high schools and community colleges, were part of the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education's 5-year studies of…

Career and technical education (CTE) students pursuing occupational associate's degrees or certificates differ from students seeking academic majors at 2-year institutions in several ways. This article examines several theoretical models of student persistence and offers a conceptual model of student success focused on CTE students in community…

The development of skill standards for Health Science was a result of a collaborative effort involving the Nevada Department of Education and a writing team with extensive experience in both teaching and in the field. The skill standards presented in this report features a framework for students interested in pursuing careers in healthcare and…

Purpose: The paper seeks to explore the career attitudes, motivations and behaviours of young people in initial vocational education and training (IVET) in Europe. Design/methodology/approach: This exploratory web-based survey was conducted during the European year for mobility. Drawing on existing research on the motivators of international…

This article brings together and discusses three research projects that examined the vocational education and career-decision making of Indigenous Australians. These studies focused on the experiences of Indigenous people themselves, in order to provide an Indigenous perspective on vocational and career development. Four main barriers that limit…

Lent and Brown [Lent, R. W., & Brown, S. D. (2006). "Integrating person and situation perspectives on work satisfaction: A social-cognitive view." "Journal of Vocational Behavior,69", 236-247] recently proposed an integrative model of work satisfaction linked to social cognitive career theory. The model posits that work satisfaction is predicted…

This paper is based on a small-scale mixed-method research project, which was located in south-east England and was funded by the British Academy. The project, investigated the factors that affected young people's decisions not to progress to higher education (HE) after following a Level 3 vocational pathway in upper secondary education. Set…

In an era in which the imperatives of global economic competition prompt institutions of higher education to promote vocational practicality and efficiency over all else, advocates of the humanities have struggled to articulate the distinctive value and contribution of our disciplines. This article seeks to develop an argument directed not at…

The topic of career pathways has gained momentum across the country. It is the latest effort in the field of career development to assist young people to be able to map out their high school and postsecondary courses of study which will lead them to a meaningful and productive future. Although the philosophy of career pathways has been developing…

Previous research conducted in agricultural education has revealed a lack of participation among National FFA Organization members. However, of those FFA members who participated in FFA sponsored events; students were most satisfied with their experiences in Career Development Events (CDEs). The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe…

The purpose of this study is to determine (a) the patterns that existed in employment preparation courses offered by districts across a midwestern state and (b) the primary intent, primary method of instruction, and location of the classroom-based and work-based components of these courses. Findings indicated that (a) employment preparation…

The aim of this longitudinal research is to explore whether poorly organized occupational thinking contributes to school dropout. The 377 students in the sample were 15-16 years old when they participated in an evaluative study on career education. Kelly's method of measuring vocational constructs, the repertory grid technique, was used to measure…

Globalization reflects a shift in the workforce development paradigm. This descriptive qualitative case study was conducted at a Midwestern university with 12 student participants and three faculty members from three engineering programs. The purpose of this body of work was to explore the participants' perceptions of globalization, and to…

A randomized posttest-only control group experimental design was used to determine the effects of think-aloud pair problem solving (TAPPS) on the troubleshooting performance of 34 secondary-level career and technical education students. There was no significant difference in success rate between TAPPS students and students who worked alone…