Publication Date

12-1975

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Betsy Hunter, Harry Robe, Eugene Harryman

Degree Program

Department of Psychology

Degree Type

Master of Arts

Abstract

Educational practices appear to have failed in preparing many individuals to build productive, fulfilling lives. This is evident in the increasing number of dropouts and individuals who qualify neither for a job nor college. Career education has been selected as a Priority program in attempting to remedy such failures.

Theory implies that to successfully implement new educational programs, educators' attitudes and values need to be favorable toward such programs. At present, however, there is very little data available about attitude and the factors that affect attitude. An analysis of educators' attitudes appears to be a necessary first step in the design and implementation of career education programs.

Previous research on educators' attitudes toward career education suggests several factors which may influence educators' attitudes, but the findings have been inconsistent. The present study was limited to five relevant and measurable factors which were assumed to be associated with attitude. The selected factors were (a) knowledge about career education, (b) the position of the educator (teacher, counselor, administrator), (c) the level of school employment (elementary, middle, or high school), (d) the number of years of work experience outside education, and (e) the method of program implementation in which the educator was involved.

There were no instruments reported in the literature that measured all of the chosen factors. A questionnaire was developed for this specific study.

A sample was selected from educators currently involved in two career education projects in the western section of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The questionnaires were completed and returned by 74 percent of the educators in the sample.

This study investigated the following questions:

  1. Is there an association between the knowledge of career education and attitude toward career education?

  2. Is there an association between the position of the educator and attitude toward career education?

  3. Is there an association between the level of the educator and attitude toward career education?

  4. Is there an association between the years of work experience outside education and attitude toward career education?

  5. Is there an association between the method of implementation and attitude toward career education?

  6. Is there an association between the set of five chosen factors and attitude toward career education?

Data were analyzed by means of a multiple classification analysis. The results of the data analysis indicated that knowledge and position had the greatest degree of association with attitude of the five factors studied. The eta correlation between knowledge and attitude was .243. The eta correlation between position and attitude was .235. The method of implementation and level of the educator had eta correlations of .191 and .116 respectively. Years of work outside education did not have a significant association with an educator's attitude toward career education. The combined effect of the set of factors had a correlation of .362, although all predictors together explained only slightly over 13 percent of the total variance in attitude.

Discussion of the results of this study center around possible uses of the information obtained, strengths of the instrument, implications for further research, and a critical look at the theoretical assumptions of this study.

Disciplines

Psychology | School Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences

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