Executive summaries and/or full text of recent NCRVE publications are available electronically on NCRVE's various online services. See the Cyberspace Update in this issue for instructions on how to access them.
What makes work-based learning programs in two-year colleges succeed? What gets in the way? This report provides the detailed analysis needed to improve and expand work-based learning programs. An in-depth study of ten programs clarifies the success factors of good programs. The researchers also report their concerns about issues like potentially discriminatory practices in the selection of students and problems with worksite organizations. The authors recommend changes needed for these programs to fulfill their potential, including increased funding, active support from colleges, and the need for more systemic approaches to the creation of standards. Linking College and Work will be invaluable to practitioners and policymakers involved in planning for the future of work-based learning programs. (This report is the second phase of a two-part project. The first phase, a survey of work-based learning programs in two-year colleges, is published as MDS-721.)
MDS-795 April 1996 $18.00
Evaluating Job Training Programs in the United States: Evidence and Explanations--W. N. Grubb
Statistics show that most job training programs do not succeed in moving recipients out of poverty, off of welfare, or into long-term, stable employment. Why? Norton Grubb, NCRVE's Berkeley site director, offers some local explanations but suggests that the root problem is the disconnection between education and job training. Grubb recommends an overall reform for job training programs based on guidelines from the School-to-Work Act, so that these programs incorporate integrated vocational and academic content; work-based education coordinated with school-based learning through connecting activities; and the connection of every program to the next in a hierarchy of educational opportunities. Warning us that a piecemeal approach will fall short, Grubb concludes that only such a fundamental revision will improve the meager results of job training programs. This study was prepared for the International Labour Congress in Geneva.
MDS-1047 December 1995 $12.00
Troubleshooting is a key skill for technicians. However, it's often difficult to provide practice opportunities that simulate the dangerous and expensive problems that occur in the field. Computer-based skills training is a solution to this problem. This reprint describes in detail a field study of a computer-coached practice environment, which enables students to confront challenging problems and to make use of corrective feedback and guidance. Students learned to perform like experts, using as much information as possible to solve the problem and performing checks to verify the fault. The results showed that students coached by a computer tutor had a 78% improvement in actual troubleshooting success over the control group. This instructional strategy also has the advantage of emphasizing only the cognitive processes of troubleshooting, thus eliminating the need for time-consuming assembly and disassembly operations. Computer-coached practice clearly has exceptional possibilities for technical education.
MDS-888 Reprint Series $2.00
The Role of the Urban Community College in Educational Reform--D. D. Bragg, J. D. Layton
Reforms like tech prep are difficult to institutionalize because they depend on collaboration between individuals and institutions not accustomed to working together. Bragg and Layton's study of tech prep reforms in urban community colleges reveals that the partnerships between secondary and postsecondary schools are tenuous at best. In fact, apart from articulation agreements, little tech prep reform has occurred. And although tech prep was conceived as a program for "all students," it is currently used only for students of average academic ability who plan to attend community college anyway. As a result, tech prep replicates existing school tracks: students in danger of dropping out don't get the chance to benefit from tech prep, and the brightest students continue to go on to college. The study also surveyed tech prep coordinators for the most serious barriers to implementation of tech prep. Their answer was the lack of general awareness of tech prep, and negative attitudes toward vocational education as a whole.
MDS-1039 Reprint Series $2.50
Vocational Education, the General Equivalency Diploma, and Urban and Minority Populations--F. L. Rivera-Batiz
Perceptions of the economic value of the GED have been contradictory. This report on the first nationally representative analysis of the GED and the labor market shows that for whites the GED and high school diploma are equivalent, but for blacks and Hispanics a high school diploma results in significantly higher gains than a GED. Since high school graduates and GED-holders have the same literacy skills, racial and ethnic labor market discrimination and the negative value employers assign to the GED must account for this difference. Rivera-Batiz points out that a GED does provide substantial economic gains to high school dropouts, so that vocational programs serving dropouts should encourage them to get a GED. For blacks and Hispanics, however, vocational programs should foster completion of high school instead.
MDS-1040 Reprint Series $2.50
Cooperative Vocational Education in the Urban School: Toward a Systems Approach--J. Stone III
Today's cooperative vocational programs need improvement in such areas as the selection of students, the development of employers into genuine training sponsors, and the evaluation of students' co-op work. This article discusses concrete strategies to improve these and other problems in current co-op practice. Stone points out that in order to expand work-based learning beyond a few demonstration programs, we must consider a range of possible workplaces. Although much current school-to-work discussion focuses on high performance or high-wage, high-skill workplaces, few of these workplaces now exist. Another possibility to consider is the community-building workplace- a business such as housing rehab, bicycle shops, or food service which is created to respond to the local community's needs and is used as a focus for learning. A third model is the capacity-building workplace. This model calls for exploring ways to create learning opportunities within the routine service jobs usually held by young people. In conclusion, Stone synthesizes existing federal legislation into a "double integration" model that calls for both the integration of academic and vocational learning, and the integration of school-based and work-based learning. This is a valuable article for all educators interested in work-based learning.
MDS-1041 Reprint Series $2.50
New Directions for Policy on Education for Work--E. G. Hoachlander
This article presents a broad framework for education policy. Three points are established, the first being that policy can no longer focus on vocational education as traditionally conceived. The second is that work-centered education requires a double integration: both classroom integration of academic and vocational education, and integration of school-based and work-based learning. The third point is that the most effective reforms are schoolwide, such as career academies and majors. Hoachlander stresses the need for a vision of education for work that can appeal to any student, regardless of ability and postsecondary aspirations. He classifies the types of knowledge education should integrate as generic, such as problem-solving and teamwork; industry relevant, such as economics and history; and occupationally specific, such as equipment and production skills. This article is a valuable synthesis of current thinking on work-related education.
MDS-1042 Reprint Series $2.00
Research-Based Case Studies: Creating Resources to Assist Teachers in the Integration of Academic and Vocational Education--C. R. Finch, B. J. Schmidt, S. L. Faulkner, J. Kandies
Preparing case studies for professional development settings is both an art and a science. The use of case studies creates a contextualized learning environment, increases student involvement, and instills a better understanding of what will be faced in the real world. This report documents the process used in creating NCRVE's case studies workbook (MDS-780), which is designed for educators involved in integrating academic and vocational education. The authors discuss the implications of their process for case study preparation in a variety of professional development settings. Some of the key issues are building realistic content; assessing usefulness for the intended audience; field testing and case refinement; and evaluating effectiveness. This methodological study will be an invaluable resource for anyone involved in creating and using research-based cases.
MDS-781 Working Paper $3.25