High Performance Learning in the Fast Food Industry

Work in Progress at the University of Minnesota

How can restructuring the "youth" dominated workplace contribute to the improvement of academic and work performance, as well as related attitudes of adolescents? This project examines these questions, as well as the impact of specific employer interventions on the occupational and academic development of young people working in the fast food industry. Interventions include:

paid time to do homework
monetary incentives for academic performance
worker empowerment
parental involvement by having regular meetings of parent(s)/guardian(s), teacher, student and store management
adult co-worker mentors

This study is testing the working theory that typical youth work environments can be restructured to provide valuable occupational and academic development for adolescents. For employers, the increased occupational development of youth should result in higher productivity of these youth. This project uses real youth work opportunities as a lab to test this theory. By demonstrating these relationships, schools attempting to expand work-based learning opportunities for all youth will have additional options in the design of school-to-work programs. Lessons learned through this project will have applicability in the wider arena of school-to-work transition. The emergent work-based learning blueprint will be a valuable tool for schools to use in creating work-based learning sites. A major outcome of this project will be a set of recommendations regarding strategies for reshaping the "youth" dominated workplace so that adolescents develop desirable social and workplace behaviors and knowledge.

For more information, please contact the following individuals at
NCRVE, University of Minnesota,
1954 Buford Avenue, R-460
St. Paul, MN 55108
James R. Stone, III, (612) 624-1795, FAX (612) 624-4720, or
Theodore Lewis (612) 624-4707, FAX (612) 624-4720

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