Career and Technical Education: An Alternative Approach to Educating At-Risk Youth

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Career and Technical Education An Alternative
Approach to Educating At-Risk Youth

• Seminar in Applied Theory and Research II
• By
• Nicole Morris

Final Presentation Spring 2010 5.20.10
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Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Statement of the Problem
• Review of Related Literature
• Statement of the Hypothesis
• Method
• Participants (N)
• Instruments (s)
• Experimental Design
• Procedure

• Results
• Discussion
• Implications
• References

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Introduction

• Shadowing the so-called well adjusted high
  school student are the youth falling victim to an
  extensive range of risk factors that make them a
  member of a growing population of diverse teens
  labeled at-risk. Their risk factors, be it low
  achievement, retention in grade, or behavior
  problems all bear the unique stamp of the
  individual that experiences expulsion,
  suspension, or other forms of rejection.
  (Poyrazli, Ferrer-Wreder, Meister, Forthun,
  Coastworth, Grahame, 2008).

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Statement of the Problem

• At-risk behavior patterns, be it prankish or
  criminal, is
• challenging educators to question their
  professional
• skills and their ethics.
• Hence, the question remains, how will the
  educational
• system carry out the job of reaching the high
  school
• student who has become so accustomed to academic
• failure?

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Review of Related Literature

• The CTE Approach
• Education policy cannot continue to believe all
  students will proceed through a traditional four
  years of high school followed directly by two to
  four years of college.
• Sagor, R. (1999).
• Education should include all members of society,
  not just the elite.
• Dewey, J. (1916)

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Review of Related LiteratureThe CTE Approach

• Instructional Strategy 1
• Alternative high schools that incorporate CTE
  programs have been effective in engaging academic
  understanding through Experiential Learning.
• Alfeld, C., Hansen, D., Aragon, S., Stone, J.
  (2006).
• Leone, P. E., Drakeford, W. (1999).

• Experiential Learning
• Theorist Carl Rogers
• Academic understanding and learning takes place
  when the subject matter is relevant to the
  personal interests of the student.
• The student participates completely in the
  learning process and has control over its nature
  and direction.
• Understanding and learning is practical, social,
  and personal.
• Students learn the method of self-evaluation to
  assess progress and success.

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Review of Related LiteratureThe CTE Approach

• Instructional Strategy 2
• CTEs positive approach uses Contextualized
  Learning to connect information to real-life
  understanding.
• Bennett, J. (2007).

• Contextualized Learning
• Theorist Nancy Karweit
• Contextualized Learning connects the students
  current environment, by providing relationships
  to abstract content areas.
• Address math and science in context to a career
  such as construction or engineering.
• Provides clear transitions from education to
  career pathways.

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Review of Related LiteraturePros

• Alternative education settings assist students to
  achieve both personally and academically through
• Individualized academic instruction.
• Behavior modification.
• Academic and social counseling.

• An alternative academic setting transforms the
  school to nurture and re-engage the student who
  has given up on learning through
• Reduced class size.
• Instructional models that have a real-life
  approach.
• Use of technology.
• DAngelo, F., Zemanick, R. (2009).

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Review of Related LiteratureCons

• Exchanges between the teacher, administrator and
  At-risk student must remain positive, and an
  understanding of consequences for inappropriate
  actions must be established. When rules are not
  established for At-risk students
• Unpleasant or violent confrontations erupt.
• Students become dis-engaged.
• Students choose to leave or dropout of school.

• For some students, the traditional academic
  setting and course names are a constant reminder
  of their educational shortcomings, failure and
  overall rejection that takes place year after
  year.
• Foley, R., Pang, L. (2006).
• Hughes-Hassell, S. (2008).
• Aron, L.Y. (2006, January).

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Statement of the Hypothesis

• HR1 An alternative high school in Queens, NY
  that includes Career and Technical Education
  (CTE) programs are more effective to re-engage
  academic understanding of Mathematics, over a 5
  month period to 17 over-aged ninth graders that
  exhibit at-risk behavior patterns.

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Method

• Participants
• Total population of 17 over-aged ninth grade boys
  and girls
• 65 or 11 students are boys
• 35 or 6 students are girls
• Racial breakdown of ninth grade students
• 71 or 12 students are African-American
• 29 or 5 students are Latin-American
• Socio-Economic status of ninth grade students
• Lower SES to include one homeless student
• Public Transfer high school located in Queens, NY

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Method Instruments

• Consent Forms administered to
• Principal
• Teacher
• Students
• Likert Scale Surveys administered to
• Teacher
• Students prior to intervention (pretest) and
  after intervention (posttest)

• Math Assessment
• 2 Pretests and 2 posttests administered to
  students using Prentice Hall Brief Review for the
  New York State Regents Exam
• Integrated Algebra and CTE (sample) lesson plan,
  Pythagoras Using a Carpenters Square

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Research Design

• Pre-Experimental Design One-Group
  Pretest-Posttest Design.
• Single Group Single group is pretested (O),
  exposed to a treatment (X), and posttested (O).
• Symbolic Design OXO

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Procedure

• The field research was conducted over a five
  month period from November 2009 to April 2010
• Consent forms distributed to and collected from
  Principal, 2 Teachers and 17 Students, November
  2009.
• Surveys distributed to and collected from 2
  Teachers and 17 Students, December 2009.
• Integrated Algebra I blended with CTE
  intervention - Carpentry Skills I, December 2009.
  
• Pretest 1 June 2008 Regents Exam administered
  to 17 Students, January 2010.
• Pretest 2 August 2008 Regents Exam administered
  to 17 Students, February 2010.
• Posttest 1 January 2009 Regents Exam
  administered to 17 Students, March 2010.
• Posttest 2 June 2009 Regents Exam administered
  to 17 Students, April 2010.
• Posttest Survey administered to Students, April
  2010.

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Results Pre-Experimental Design/ One Group
Pretest and Posttest Scores
Analysis illustrates that 94 of students
showed an increase in Math Scores following CTE
intervention.
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Results Pre-Experimental Design/ One Group
Pretest and Posttest Scores
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Results Correlation of Student Confidence in
Mathematics and Pretest 1 Math Scores

• Likert Scale Survey Question 7
• Solving math problems often makes me nervous and
  upset.
• Strongly Agree Agree Disagree
  Strongly Disagree
• (1) (2) (3)
  (4)

Correlation Coefficient (rxy) 0.84 hence,
the line of best fit shows a positive correlation
between students (lack) of confidence and
Pretest 1 math scores.
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Results Correlation of Content Mastery in
Mathematics and Posttest 2 Math Scores

• Likert Scale Survey Question 8
• I enjoy math more when blended with the CTE/
  Carpentry Co-teacher because he makes
• solving math problems more understandable.
• Strongly Agree Agree Disagree
  Strongly Disagree
• (1) (2) (3)
  (4)

Correlation Coefficient (rxy) -0.89 hence,
the line of best fit shows a negative correlation
between students content mastery and Posttest 2
math scores.
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Results Data Analysis of Pre-Experimental
Design

• Single Group Posttest 2
• Mean is 75, Median is 79 and Mode is 82
• The Standard Deviation from the Mean was /- .15
• Five of the seventeen scores or 29 is
  approximately 1 Standard Deviation below the Mean
  

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Discussion

• This study supports the hypothesis that Career
  and Technical Education (CTE) programs are more
  effective to re-engage academic understanding of
  mathematics.
• CTE programs meet the educational needs for youth
  identified as at-risk by providing Experiential
  and/ or Contextualized Learning to make
  instruction more relevant and less abstract
  (Conner, McKee 2008 Foley Pang 2006).
• Education should be non-discriminatory and
  provide alternative settings for the variety of
  learners and their academic abilities. Hence,
  schools that blend the core academics (Math,
  Science, English, Social Studies) with CTE
  Programs help to refocus at-risk youth, and can
  prepare them to successfully graduate from highs
  chool and transition to the workforce (Aron 2006
  Bennett 2007 Dewey 1916).

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Implications

• The results of the research show that educating
  at-risk students through CTE programs positively
  influence the engagement of abstract subjects
  like mathematics, by constructing the content to
  be more relevant to a students life (Rogers,
  1969). However, the research would require a
  longer study to truly investigate whether the
  students improved academically from the CTE
  programs, and graduated from high school.
• The students evaluated in the research have all
  repeated one grade or more during their
  educational journey. Additionally, they have
  spent time away from the classroom because of
  suspension, temporary incarceration or other
  personal issues. Thus, any setbacks or reminders
  of failure is likely to cause these students to
  withdraw from school completely!

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Threats to Validity

• Internal Threats to Validity
• History
• Maturation
• Testing
• Instrumentation
• Differential Selection
• Mortality
• Selection-Maturation Interaction

• External Threats to Validity
• Pretest Treatment
• Selection-Treatment Interaction
• Experimenter Effects
• Reactive Arrangements/ Participants Effects