Blowe, E., & Price, T. (n.d.). Career and Technical Education: Academic Achievement and                     Graduation Rates of Students in the Commonwealth of Virginia. SAGE Open, 2(3),                     1–8. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244012455437

In this article by Eleanor Blowe, a current high school administrator, and Ted Price, a doctorate professor in Virginia Tech’s Education Department, they address the ever-growing pressures that are being placed on our students today. The study was promoted by their interest in the government’s restrictions on education and how they are causing CTE courses to diminish. To get a better understanding of why this new legislation should be changed they looked into student achievement and graduation rates for CTE and NON-CTE students in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  The student achievement was based on their scores from the English reading and mathematics assessments that are outlined by Virginias standard of learning(SOL). Using data from 2008, 2009 and 2010 that were collected from the 131 school divisions in the area they were able to conclude that students enrolled in CTE programs or courses “demonstrate higher mathematics, reading and graduation pass rate”( Blowe, 2012.7). This article is well written, very informative and easy to read; anyone who is looking for more information about the benefits of CTE can understand the text. However, when discussing this article, the reader must understand that there these statements are based solely on the data from schools in Virginia and should not be applied to all students in the US. Blowe and Price’s developments provide me with concrete data that shows a CTE program in the United States that promotes academic success along with career skills.

Kosloski, M., & Ritz, J. (n.d.). Research Needs: Career and Technical Education. Career and      Technical Education Research, 41(2), 117–140. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.5328/         cter41.2.107

This study was written by two professors from Old Dominion University, Michael Kosloski Jr. and John Ritz, both of which are involved with the school’s STEM and professional studies department. They choose to discuss the need for more research into the field of CTE and what aspects of the program that should be a review for further adjustments. To do this the looked at the past research and the ideas that they studied. Then gathered some of the past researchers and authors of these works to partake in a panel. They used a Delphi study, where they had 4 and in each round, the panelist was asked to expand on the topics that have been and still need to be researched. From this, they gathered 11 topics based off of their set of criteria that are the most important aspect of CTE that has yet to be fully explored. Their findings are similar to the findings of Furbish and his collaborators’ article, both studies concluded that CTE is a very under-researched field. Yet, both articles agree that these programs need to be studied further especially in today’s modern era so that students can get the most out of their education. In order to account for bias, I must state that these are topics that have been found to be important based off of a set of criteria that the authors put together themselves and may not represent the entire fields views. However, this articles is well designed and easy to read; I would recommend it for anyone interested in furthering CTE research or who needs help finding a topic to choose. These authors share my same feelings that are paramount that educators of today’s students must continue to be “finding more information about what needs to be researched for improved delivery of career and technical education” (Kosloski, 2016. 1).  Careers change every year and if we don’t evolve our CTE programs we will fail to educate our students for the careers and life in the 21^{st t} century.

Schneider, J., & Foot, R. (n.d.). Teaching Strategies to Support Vocational Education Students’ Reading Literacy. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 86(1), 32–36.

This study from Jennifer Schneider and Rachel Foot, both associated with Kent State University in the School of Teaching and Learning, they discuss the need for new teaching methods that address a wider variety of texts. This is a skill that is lacking in our students today thus causing them to struggle in the workplace. After looking at teaching methods they outline four practices that have been found to improve student’s summarizing, sequencing, predicting/ hypothesizing, retelling, extending information, finding information, comparing and contrasting, giving opinions, and evaluating. There finding was similar to the findings in the article “Let’s Not Forget the Career in College”, since both articles see the need for a change in the way our language arts are being taught. The article from, Schneider and Foot, however, is shorter and their methods are outlined in clear concise paragraphs clearly stated. The author’s findings may impact my research because they outline four key methods that can easily be implemented in primary and secondary schools.

Penninckx, M., Vanhoof, J., & Van Petegem, P. (n.d.). Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Professional Development Program on Pupil Well-being in Primary Schools. Studia Paedagogica, Retrieved from 19(4), 81–100.

This article was written By Maarten Pennincky, Jan vannhoof, and Peter Van Petegem, who are all involved with the University of Antwerp’s research unit in Edubron, Belgium. They focused their study on assessing professional development programs effectiveness within primary schools. To do this they split students into two groups, one group received a quasi-experiment and the other group was the control. After the program was over they used feedback sheets, interviews, and focus groups to evaluate the effects of the program. In order to keep it uniform, they evaluated based on four levels the first is reaction, second is learning, third is behavior, and the fourth is results. However, this study’s conclusions did not support their hypothesis. They agreed that this may have been a fault of how short the program was, along with the fact that the program did not have much effect on the behavior of the school. This is an interesting study because their main hypothesis was similar to many of my other articles, yet the outcome was exponentially different from most other conclusions. This, easy to read, article is important for anyone who is trying to understand CTE programs from all angles in order to find the best way to improve it. Their conclusions about the effects on the behavior of the school prompted me to explore how to start the implementation of these programs in order to achieve the best results. I believe this to be credible because it is a peer-reviewed journal so therefore other scholars have agreed to publish this work.

Furbish, D., & Reid, L. (n.d.). Best practices in career education and development in                       New Zealand secondary schools. Australian Journal of Career  Development,  22(1), 14–20.Retrieved February, 2019

In this article, two professors from the Auckland University of Technology, Dale Furbish and Lynette Reid, explored New Zealand’s unique Career Education and Guidance (CEG) programs. New Zealand’s Ministry of Education feels that every school is able to make career education and guidance a pillar in their academic structure. They looked at 20 schools that were nominated, by distinguished organizations, for their CEG programs. The research was centered around interviews with each of the school’s career advisors that asked opened ended questions centered around the school’s career education and guidance program, resources and specific activities. After reviewing the interview transcripts, the authors found seven themes that were apparent throughout each of these distinguished CEG programs. I found that, like this article, many of the articles that I have chosen to study have been from other countries, which means it cannot be generalized to American schools. However, I feel that this adds a certain level of diversity to the study along with different perspectives on the same types of programs. This easy, ‘light read’ article is certainly for anyone who is interested in an in-depth look into current CEG/ CTE programs. This article is a great example of current career education methods and has given me many topics to address when analyzing the best methods for re-engineering the United States CTE programs.

Mosier, G. G., Bradley-Levine, J., & Perkins, T. (2016). Students’ Perceptions of Project-Based Learning within the New Tech School Model. International        Journal of Educational Reform,25(1), 2-15. Retrieved February, 2019.

I found this study to be very interesting for my topic of research. New Tech schools are a new style of schools that are more centered around project-based learning (PBL), a democratic school system and technology integration. This is very interesting because some of the methods that they use could possibly be used in newer CTE education reform. In summary this study was centered around two main research questions: 1. “How do students perceive PBL and the NTS model?” and 2. “How do students’ perceptions of PBL connect to their views of NTS implementation?” ( Mosier 5). The used a survey method to collect data from 6 New Tech schools and had 710 student participants. they wanted to understand how the students perceived their education and what aspects appeal or don’t appeal to them.  Their findings found that there were many strong correlations to the student’s happiness at school and the PBL/ New Tech school practices. I found it really interesting that many of the student correlated the PBL methods to creating a “culture of “trust, respect and responsibility” (11). I think it’s a great idea to get the reactions and feelings of the students because they are often left unaccounted for. When trying to come up with a new educational curriculum its important to poll the feeling of everyone involved in order to make sure the curriculum is effective. More importantly I loved how the research was done. There survey seemed really thought out and covered almost every aspect of their education. In my favorite section they have the students describe what behaviors their teachers demonstrate when using the PBL methods. I believe that it is important when creating a curriculum to look at it from the student’s perspective. This allows you to understand what the what the teacher is doing to help or not help these students. The finding saw that when the teacher was enthusiastic about the PBL activity the students enjoyment and understanding of the material was much higher than the teachers who are not thrilled to be teaching PBL.