Norton Grubb was asked to conduct the research on curriculum integration for the National Assessment of Vocational Education. This involved developing questionnaires for high schools and community colleges to report the kinds of integration activities they were engaged in during 1992. The resulting monograph (Grubb & Stasz, 1993, incorporated into Boesel, 1994) clarified that there was increasing interest in curriculum integration, though it was still low, much lower than in secondary schools, and was principally confined to specifying general education requirements, the development of applied academics courses, and offering Writing Across the Curriculum. Curriculum integration was also more frequent in states that had developed specific initiatives and technical assistance, and in large and well-funded institutions. However, based on what we had learned from earlier research and from workshops, it also appeared that the answers to these questionnaires were often exaggerated: in many cases it looked like community colleges reported practices under development, or practices that they wanted to develop, rather than examples of curriculum integration already in place.
However, in 1994, interest in curriculum integration began to increase. Several additional states began to develop initiatives to require that local colleges use their Perkins funds for integration, leading to a increased demand on NCRVE for workshops related to curriculum integration. In response, Norena Badway, together with Norton Grubb, began investigating more recent developments. Initially, we mailed letters to deans of instruction to 309 public community colleges and technical institutes (82% and 18% of the total, respectively), representing a random sample of one-third of the nation's institutions. They were asked to return a postcard checking a box if they integrated academic and vocational education in any way, with space for a brief description of practices in place and the name and phone number for a contact person. Following that, we faxed surveys to non-responders, achieving an 81% response rate. We then contacted by phone 122 campuses, concentrating on those with unusual or especially interesting descriptions, but not contacting those reporting gen ed requirements for graduation or common forms of applied academics courses. At each institution, we typically interviewed a dean of instruction and several administrative or faculty members, and requested samples of course outlines, learning activities, and examinations. Only 2% (6 out of 251) reported that they were not integrating in any way. We supplemented that information with site visits to Dutchess Community College in New York; New Hampshire Technical College-Laconia; Fresno Community College in California; La Guardia Community College in New York; and San Diego City College.
An additional source of information about curriculum integration comes from the workshops and presentations carried out for community colleges by Grubb, Kraskouskas, and Badway. Within the past two years, we have presented about 35 such workshops to individual community colleges and consortia of colleges in particular regions. These are, of course, primarily forms of technical assistance, not mechanisms of information gathering; but the comments of participants often reveal the kinds of efforts community colleges are making and what problems they face most often. The workshops have therefore helped us develop a sense of what is going on around the country--often difficult to do given the range and variety of community colleges, and the lack of systematic channels of information.
A final source of information is a larger study of teaching in community colleges and technical institutes, again supported by the National Center for Research in Vocational Education. As part of this study, a team led by Norton Grubb has observed the classes of about 300 community college instructors, interviewing them and their college administrators. As part of this study, we have observed a number of integrated classes--and we stress that what one learns from observations is much different from what course materials reveal and what instructors say. Although the results of this study will be not be written up until later in 1997, they have also informed the current report.