A study of parental attitudes toward selected concepts of career education

Career education, as a relatively new concept in education in the United States, has received much attention from many different sources since its inception. While a number of studies have been devoted to various aspects of career education, none have directly studied the attitudes of parents toward career education as it was operationally defined. The purpose of this study was to assess those attitudes of parents of public school children toward selected concepts of career education. This assessment was to be realized through the development of a survey instrument which was composed of statements embodying the essence of the selected concepts. The concepts were to be identified through a review of the literature. PROCEDURES A review of existing and proposed career education programs revealed a set of career education concepts which were divided by the researcher into two groups, one group consisting of eight identified program goal statements and the other of eleven identified program components. Statements were developed embodying the spirit of each of the concepts. This set of statements was submitted to a panel of career education experts for validation. The statements were revised according to the experts' responses, and the final instrument was sent to a sample of randomly identified parents in a seven county area in and around the Houston, Texas metropolitan area. An identical set of surveys was sent to school board members in the same area to ascertain the attitudes held by this level of educational leadership. Responses of the parents were analyzed in terms of a mean established by the experts for each of the thirty-eight statements. Responses were defined on a Likert-type scale from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree, with each defined level of the five point scale being assigned a number for purposes of analyzing the data through a t-test of the difference of the means. Analysis was also carried out according to each of several parameters identified by the researcher including -sex of the child identified in the random selection process -grade level of child identified in the random selection process -size of the city or town of the parent -ethnic or racial origin of the parent -occupational category of the parent -occupational category desired by the parent for his child -form of the test This last parameter was included to determine if any difference could be noted between parents who responded to statements relating the concepts to their own children and parents responding to statements relating to all children. CONCLUSIONS A return of 72.5 percent of the surveys permitted the analysis of a sample sufficiently large to permit generalizations (N=371). The original statistical procedure chosen to determine significance was discarded when its use revealed statistical but not real significance on nearly all of the statements. A graphic analysis was then utilized to provide these conclusions: -Parents Indicated positive support of nearly all of the program goals and program components of career education. -In instances where parents tended to disagree with a particular concept, that disagreement appeared to be related to the impact that the concept would have in altering the existing educational practices and relationships. -In general, parents tended to support the program goals fully while their disagreement was centered in those program components which seemed to threaten the continuance of established programs. -There appeared to be no substantial differences in responses among the subgroups of each grouping of parents investigated, thus indicating a rather broad base of agreement among all kinds of parents. -School board members indicated a slight tendency to be somewhat less supportive of several of the career education concepts than parents; however, as a whole they appeared to be nearly always in agreement with parents. -Parents issued strong support for the traditional elements of the instructional program, especially those which assisted in preparing their children for college entry. RECOMMENDATIONS The following recommendations were made on the basis of the findings: -School districts engaged in career education must make concerted efforts to utilize the existing support of parents for the goals of career education. -School administrators should avoid the wanton replacement of traditional educational practices which are supported by parents in implementing career education programs. -School administrators must enlist the assistance of parents in developing program components which will lead to a successful program. -School administrators must seek ways to continually inform parents and others about employment trends away from the need for a college degree as a prerequisite for employment. -School districts would be wise to replicate this study in their own unique settings with their own particular program goals and components so as to precisely determine the potential response of their own constituents.