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An investigation of factors predicting success in vocational exploration programs for students with disabilities

Posted on:1997-01-31Degree:Ed.DType:Dissertation
University:Indiana University of PennsylvaniaCandidate:Abel, James FFull Text:PDF
GTID:1467390014480878Subject:Education
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Since individuals with disabilities exhibit high rates of both unemployment and underemployment, this explorative study focused on the predictive utility of the psychological and vocational assessment data of 95 students eligible for special education services at a regional vocational high school. This study also investigated the relationship between this datum and the degree to which it was associated with academic, vocational, and emotional/behavioral success within specific vocational programs.;Correlation Coefficients suggested that person-environmental fit measures are not related to student outcome measures; such as student grades, school attendance, vocational choice, classroom behavior, and compliance with school regulations. Canonical Correlations and Multiple Regression Analyses produced few significant results. However, a Manual Dexterity measure contributed significantly to the prediction of student Grade Point Average (GPA) and the Self Directed Search (SDS) Social Score contributed significantly to the prediction of the students' Vocational Grade.;A Multivariate Analysis of Variance followed by subsequent One-way Analysis of Variance for the assessment datum revealed that significant differences did exist between specific vocational clusters. Students enrolled in the Industrial cluster exhibited significantly higher SDS Realistic scores than students enrolled in the Health and Business clusters. The Industrial and the Business students exhibited significantly higher Verbal I.Q, scores than the Health students.;In general, the results of this study suggests, that when students with disabilities are viewed as a homogeneous group, vocational and psychological assessment results do not predict educational outcomes with any degree of significance. However, the significant differences noted between vocational clusters suggests that the assessment results may demonstrate some utility when used in a vocational counseling context.
Keywords/Search Tags:Vocational, Students, Assessment, Results
PDF Full Text Request
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