The effects of cooperative education on the initial employment of community college drafting graduates

This investigation compared community college drafting graduates who experienced cooperative education, including those who stayed with their former cooperative education employer, with another group of community college drafting graduates who did not experience cooperative education with respect to which group reported having a greater sense of power in their jobs. More specifically, graduates were examined by measures designed to assess organizational socialization, relevance of job to career plans, degree of access to resources and participation in decision-making. Organizational socialization was evaluated by measures concerning early expectations, job congruence, organizational commitment and "learning the ropes." These measures were based on an investigation by Brown (1984). Additional qualitative research supplemented this quantitative study.;Twenty-four graduates from the Mechanical Drafting Technology program at Alamance Community College comprised the sample of cooperative education graduates. Thirteen graduates from the Drafting and Design Engineering Technology program at Forsyth Technical Community College constituted the sample of graduates without cooperative education experience. The samples consisted of graduates from both institutions for the years 1992 to 1999. A questionnaire developed by Brown (1984) was modified and employed as the main instrument to obtain data concerning which group of graduates reported having a greater sense of power in their jobs. ANOVA was used to analyze statistical data from the returned questionnaires. No significance (p < .05) was detected with any of the four measures with regard to the following three groups of community college drafting graduates: (1) cooperative education graduates who stayed with their former co-op employer, (2) cooperative education graduates who gained employment with a new employer and (3) graduates without cooperative education experience. In addition, statistical significance (p < .05) was not attained for the combined two groups of cooperative education graduates versus the graduates without co-op experience on the employee sense of power measures. A qualitative inquiry provided insight into how two carefully selected drafting graduates representing each community college perceive their involvement with the four measures of employee sense of power.;Overall, it was concluded that cooperative education at Alamance Community College has thus far not statistically substantiated an ability to enhance employee sense of power for initially employed mechanical drafting technology graduates. Further related research is recommended.