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| Flaxman, E., Guerrero, A., & Gretchen, D. (1999). Career development effects of career magnets versus comprehensive schools (MDS-803). Berkeley: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, University of California. |
In a related study of the effects of attending a career magnet high school, using the data set created for this study, Zellman and Quigley (1999) developed two models of variables pointing to differences in the experiences of the career magnet and the comprehensive graduates. For the first model, the researchers chose variables explaining institutional effects (e.g., self-efficacy, career identity, institutional characteristics, student at-risk behaviors, and parental and family characteristics). To create the model, the researchers collapsed some of the variables and created scales from the others. For the second model, they chose variables in the literature predicting parental willingness to make sacrifices for their child's education (absence of risk behaviors, good academic performance in high school, specific occupational interests, and self-efficacy). They chose these variables because they would indicate the child's seriousness of purpose to warrant financial sacrifices.
To understand the interactions and individual impact of the variables, the researchers ran regression analyses on each model to predict career magnet or comprehensive high school graduation. The regressions were also run to identify variables significant at the p < .05 level. Both of the models were tested for multicollinear and influential data points affecting the fit of the regression model.
The analyses revealed that the influence on the career magnet student is transmitted through peer relationships and parent support. The career magnet students were more likely to have a best friend who has a career interest, and thus very likely to have been exposed to an environment in which career thinking and career planning were the norms. Consequently, friendships in the new environment, away from the neighborhood, were more likely to form around mature interests than might be otherwise possible; in turn, students might have come to believe that they were developing and using marketable skills in their career-oriented classes and at work. In addition, the school, with its emphasis on the rewards of current efforts in the future, likely influenced the youth and his or her peer group to avoid at-risk behaviors.
The analyses also revealed that a student who graduated from a career magnet high school is 30% more likely than a comprehensive graduate to perceive that his or her parents would be willing to make sacrifices to send him or her to college. These same students were 19% more likely to believe that they would be in their desired career within the next six to ten years. Importantly, these models suggest that of all the variables, attendance at the career magnet high school itself may have led to parents' assumptions about their children's seriousness of efforts because it required extra physical and academic effort to attend. This coupled with other variables in the models, like career confidence, avoidance of at-risk behaviors, and career-related college plans, likely led to parental commitment to their children's education.
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| Flaxman, E., Guerrero, A., & Gretchen, D. (1999). Career development effects of career magnets versus comprehensive schools (MDS-803). Berkeley: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, University of California. |
