LaValva, S V (2016) An examination of the relationship among New Jersey county vocational school administrators' perceptions and the variables that impact enrollment in high school level building trades programs. EdD thesis, Saint Peter's University, USA.
Abstract
The construction industry in New Jersey has long provided a viable opportunity to young men and women searching for employment as an alternative to continuing education beyond high school. Although New Jersey's county vocational school systems were established and are funded for the purposes of educating and training students in prerequisite skill sets for work force positions, discussions with the administration of today’s county vocational school districts suggests that enrollment in many of the programs developed to prepare students for construction industry or building trades programs has been decreasing. This mixed methods study examined the evolution of building trades education in New Jersey’s county vocational high school system through the perspective of the administrators charged with leading the districts currently offering programming in the same. More specifically, these administrators were asked to identify the variables they believe to have contributed to a perceived decline in enrollment in these courses. The null hypothesis tested as part of this study was that there is no statistically significant relationship among New Jersey county vocational school administrators’ perceptions and the variables that impact enrollment in high school level Building Trades programming. In addition to testing the null hypothesis, role emphasis was placed on answering the following, research questions: 1. What are the variables that have impacted enrolment in Building Trades programming at the high school level? 2. Are there notable differences in beliefs of the respondents based on the population of the county in which the school districts operate? 3. Is there a program structure that is more effective at maintaining consistent enrollment than others, i. e. shared time programming vs. full time programming? 4. Are county vocational school districts moving away from offering prerequisite coursework in traditionally less academic trades and more towards traditionally highly academic trades, i. e. engineering, technology and medicine?
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Andrews, R |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Jersey; building trades; education; employment; population; programming; training; women |
| Index terms: | employment, enrolment, mixed method, school district, construction industry, testing, medicine, women, continuing education, New Jersey, building trade, Jersey, programming, evolution, program, population |
| Subjects: | industry analysis, sociology, recruitment and enrolment, professional development, software systems, management, educational management, data collection methods, demography, Geography, medical science and clinical practice, professional practice, environmental science, practitioner, programming |
| Topics: | Education, Sustainability, Geographical Context, Engineering Principles, Health and Safety, Human Resources, Digital Applications, Urban Studies, Roles and Professions, Research Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTE |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here