HRD 606

This is a paper I wrote before I enrolled in a Master’s program. It’s dated now, but I’m still proud of it. I don’t know why I never submitted it for possible publication.

The United States faces a plethora of challenges resulting from rapidly changing technologies and increasing international competition. The nation’s greatest economic challenge is effective training of its rising youth workforce to meet the current and future needs of a global economy. How trainers and educators meet that challenge will determine the nation’s success or failure in international business.

Vocational education (VocEd) has existed since man first had to pass on knowledge related to growing crops, making weapons and tools, weaving cloth, or preparing food and drink. VocEd metamorphosed through the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, and all human epochs up to the present Technological Age. VocEd was especially important in the 19th Century’s Industrial Revolution. It will continue to transform as required by future economic trends and society’s needs.

Every country in the world has some form of VocEd. “Some countries focus vocational education at the upper secondary level, while others do so at the postsecondary level” (U. S., 1994, 8). The United States and Japan are two examples of countries that follow the latter course. Both vocational educators and business people generally believe that the present educational system of concurrent vocational and general track programs must improve significantly if educators expect to prepare students for more education or for high-skill, high-wage jobs. Current VocEd conditions include

• secondary VocEd enrollments are dropping, and the enrollment percentage of students who are economically disadvantaged, disabled, or limited English-proficient is increasing;
• neither vocational nor general track studies adequately prepares students for work or post-secondary education; and,
• less than half the VocEd courses students take are actually used on the job (U. S., 1994, 2).

Some possible solutions for these deficiencies include

• combining general and vocational tracks to create a system of industry-based majors that prepare students for careers — not just jobs — and developing rigorous classes based on high industry-oriented skills standards, assessed by reliable methods leading to portable credentials;
• developing business, education, and labor partnerships; and,
• improving teacher training in the areas of integrating vocational and academic instruction (U. S., 1994, 5).

The modern workplace is quite different from the days of stereotyped white-collar office worker and the blue-collar factory worker. Today, workers must be versatile and possess a combination of critical thinking and manual capabilities. Other changes in the workplace include

• a premium is placed on workers’ ability and willingness to make learning new skills a lifelong habit;
• companies are becoming less hierarchically organized, resulting in fluid structures that will support expanded decision-making roles for employees at all levels; and,
• career paths are substantially more variable with less emphasis on long-term affiliation with one job and greater payoffs from continued movement and corollary development of new skills (U. S., 1996, 4).

As stated above, VocEd has existed since the dawn of mankind, and some experts contend that it has kept pace with the needs of society through the ages. Other experts disagree; they maintain that VocEd has not responded to society’s changing needs, that it “prepares students for the mechanical age of the past rather than the technological era of the future” (Kulik, 1998, 3). The latter group believes VocEd hampers students academically and does not prepare them adequately for careers. Some experts believe that minorities are under-represented in VocEd tracks; this restricts their future opportunities.

Improving VocEd directly affects improved lifestyles among those who participate in its programs, both in secondary schools and adult education programs. These improvements include raised employment status, occupational prestige, and higher earnings in the workplace; on a personal level, individuals experience growth in their cognitive abilities.

In modern Western society, adolescence is a traumatic time for many children as they undergo rapid physical growth, move from concrete to abstract thinking, formulate self-concept, and develop social skills. During this time, most adolescents form strong opinions, fashioning lifelong attitudes about learning, work, and other enduring adult values. In the workplace, many young adolescents project gender-stereotyped views of occupations and often have limited aspirations. Educators must help these students overcome such stereotypes and help them prepare for careers in the burgeoning global economy. For example, a crucial factor in the formation of vocational identity is self-esteem. Educators nurture self-esteem and enhance self-confidence by helping students understand the impact of their choices for education, vocation, and career.

Employers and society in general face economic challenges as the economy moves into a very competitive world market. Many organizations restructure their management, operating and production processes, resulting (in many cases) in downsizing and adopting new technologies. Though these changes are positive for survival and success, they expose a new list of “priority” skills employees need to make the transition from school to work: work ethics, discipline, respect for authority, numeracy, and literacy. Innumerable teens and young adults lack these skills; therefore, employers seek applicants with demonstrated work experience, good job performance skills, strong verbal and math skills, and mature interpersonal skills.

Many employers perceive VocEd as an advantage over a general high school education, in that VocEd produces workers better suited to the requirements of a global economy. Generally, the size of an organization determines the level of education it desires in employees. One study found that

• small- and medium-sized businesses place the highest value on a high school diploma;
• larger firms value at least a two-year technical degree from a community college: and,
• employers rate secondary VocEd graduates over other entry-level employees (Lankard, 1994, 8).

In the same study, researchers determined that

• VocEd graduates compare most favorably in the following areas: additional responsibility, teamwork, quality of products/services and adaptability; and,
• graduates compare least favorably in motivating other workers; requiring less direct supervision; ability to learn new skills; regular, prompt attendance; and personal discipline (Lankard, 1994, 6).

Lankard (1994) recommends methods to reduce these weaknesses, including increasing basic skills such as reading, writing, and math, while teaching job-keeping and interpersonal skills and encouraging self-esteem (par. 9). Lankard (1994) further recommends apprenticeship programs to give students an opportunity to obtain useful skills in real-life situations (par. 11). All of these suggestions are useful if educators communicate with industry to determine industry’s requirements and develop curricula to fulfill them. “Increased competition for jobs, which has extended to school-to-work transition time of teenaged youth, necessitates that high school students be prepared to meet employer demands if they hope to become employed” (Lankard, 1994, 5).

One of the most-important job skills required in the current workforce is the ability to logically analyze and resolve issues. Current management theory insists that employees excel when they are empowered, through training and experience, to make decisions and solve problems. One popular management style, Total Quality Management (TQM), focuses on employee empowerment. Business and industry embraced TQM as a way to establish standards and techniques that ensure the quality of products through continuous improvement. TQM relies on the experiences, expertise, and commitment of all members of an organization to improve the processes by which customers are served. The term “customer” includes both those inside and outside the organization. “TQM requires a change in attitude on the part of the organization’s management and staff wherein all workers are encouraged, empowered and committed to seek out improvements in process, products and services and to accept responsibility for solving problems as they arise” (Lankard, 1992, 8).

TQM’s success relies on empowering workers as critical thinkers. Critical thinkers exhibit perseverence, flexibility, transfer of knowledge, problem orientation, open-mindedness, use of quality standards, and independence. “The ability to think creatively, make decisions, solve problems, visualize, reason, analyze, interpret, and know how to learn — these skills are most often mentioned in definitions of critical thinking” (Kerka, 1992, 2).

Characteristics of future business trends drive the need for higher-order, critical thinking in VocEd. Students must learn flexibility, adaptability to changing conditions, the ability to acquire new learning, and how to seek knowledge throughout a lifetime of work. More important, however VocEd must provide training in real world conditions for cognitive development. Cognitive abilities are vital to vocational occupations. “One of the ways to prepare future employees is to teach them how to think instead of what to think” (Kerka, 1992, 3).

Active learning develops cognitive thinking skills through hands-on training and questioning information to build knowledge. Students must put information in context to develop understanding. Learning must be proactive; information does not automatically transfer to the student. “Higher order learning is not a change in behavior but the construction of meaning from experience” (Kerka, 1992, 4).

In the active learning process, the learner constructs knowledge as a result of interaction with his physical and social environment. The student moves from possessing basic skills and pure facts to linking new information with prior knowledge; from relying on a single authority to recognizing multiple sources of knowledge; from novice-like to expert-like problem solving (Kerka, 1992, 5). A metaphor for the new role of teachers in developing thinking skills is “a guide on the side rather than a sage on the stage” (Kerka, 1992, 7).

Assessing the achievement of higher-order thinking skills is a challenge because it requires subjective evaluation. Observers measure the qualities of learners’ thinking and knowledge, not just their results or products. Evaluation techniques that assess, rather than test, require students to explain (for instance) why an answer is false and follow with a critique or evaluation of the problem. To achieve this type of learning environment, educators must employ certain cognitive theories when developing curricula

• Information processing — this theory explains how the mind takes in information.
• Knowledge structure — these theories depict how knowledge is represented and organized in the mind; and,
• Social history — this theory explains the vital role of cultural context in the development of individual thinking (Kerka, 1992, 5).

Developing higher-level cognitive capacities requires more than one or two lessons in thinking skills. Instructors must develop curricula that fosters cognitive thinking and apply it in VocEd lessons. “Applying cognitive development principles in vocational curriculum and instruction builds on the strengths of vocational education to develop higher order skills needed in the spheres of work, family, community, and society” (Kerka, 1992, 18).

Experts over many years noted that VocEd lacks applied principles of science and mathematics, which are fundamental to many VocEd fields. Both subjects also hold high value in the workplace:

• new technologies generate increased and varied application of scientifically based materials in the workplace, and enhancing the importance of workers’ science and math knowledge and skills; and,
• science provides the foundations for creative thinking and cognitive development and thus a basis for understanding at a level sufficient for performing general tasks in any real-world setting (Lankard, 1993, 3).

Successful integration of academic and VocEd subjects has a number of educational benefits:

• provides a potent strategy for making curricula and instructional methods foster learning that is more available and meaningful to all students;
• promotes collaboration among teachers, both in curriculum and instructional planning (Berryman, 1992, 3); and,
• promotes the educational reform strategy concept held by vocational educators, supported by the business community, and articulated by policy makers in the Federal government (Lankard, 1992, 7).

“[Integration] is vocational education’s attempt to improve the educational and employment opportunities of youth who will face new technologies and business management systems that demand high-level worker skills” (Lankard, 1992, 1).

By better understanding the requirements of business and industry, VocEd instructors prepare specific lessons that address realistic needs of both employers and students. However, instructors must not forget to closely examine student motivators.

Human beings have an innate drive to make sense of the world. Constructivism is one theory that explains this drive. Instead of absorbing or passively receiving objective knowledge that is “out there” from lectures, learners actively construct knowledge by integrating new information and experiences into their existing body of knowledge and understanding, revising and reinterpreting old knowledge in order to reconcile it with the new.

Hands-on experiences, guided by expert practitioners encourage such integration by helping students amass a rich index of cognitive structures they can recall and use in the future. The cognitive structures that learners build include “procedural” knowledge (“how” — techniques, skills, and abilities) and “propositional” knowledge (“that” — facts, concepts, propositions) (Kerka, 1997, 2). In addition, attitudes, values, and interests help learners decide if a function is worth doing. Knowing “how” and “that” is not sufficient without the disposition to “do.”

Procedural and propositional knowledge are not the only factors to consider in designing effective training. “Other features of knowledge construction are functional context, social context, and usefulness” (Kerka, 1997, 2). Although everyone learns on a personal level, learning takes place within a social context. Learning must be useful to the student in multiple venues; personal motivation emerges from his desire to understand, that is, to construct meaning. “Knowledge is created and made meaningful by the context in which it is acquired” (Kerka, 1997, 5).

Activity is a key factor in knowledge construction, and participation in everyday work activities requires learners to access higher-order procedural knowledge. Educators must focus on the individual’s active participation in knowledge construction. VocEd is an outstanding arena for such education. VocEd’s fundamental role is “to facilitate construction of knowledge through experiential, contextual, and social methods in real-world environments” (Kerka, 1997, 9). Since VocEd focuses on the learner, making education a learning process rather than a teaching process, the instructor acts as a guide to assist the student in obtaining knowledge (Kerka, 1997, 15).

Current business focus is on the “new economic order,” or the “global arena” (Kerka, 1993, 1) as all facets of business and industry (i.e., policymakers and educators) strive to prepare the United States for competition in the global economy. Career education previously focused on helping people understand the relationship between education and work and acquire employability skills. Workers and VocEd students must now recognize global opportunities and meet the challenges of an international workplace. Without a shift in perspective regarding career education, workers will not be able to successfully participate in the global economy.

Many factors affect the global economy: decreasing transportation and communication costs, new political structures and economic alliances, and melding of tastes due to a mixture of cultures are just a few. Flexible, information-based technologies emerged as an important influence in changing local economies to a more-global basis. New market standards of productivity, variety, quality, customization, convenience, and timeliness require significant changes in the structures, skill needs, and jobs of employer-organizations. Competitive organizations exhibit productivity, flexibility, speed, affordable quality, and customer focus. These new standards facilitate integrated work groups, teamwork, and shared information. As Kerka (1993) states, “The global economy will influence people’s lives whether or not they are employed in international firms” (par. 4).

The global economy requires a broader set of skills. “Hard” technical skills — either mechanical or knowledge — and “soft” skills — interpersonal and communication — are equally important. Many experts list developed skills that include managing information, resources, and relationships with people, as well as self-management, as necessary for workers’ success. Additionally, basic skills — reading, writing, and computation — should supplement the most important skill, which is the ability to learn continuously throughout life. A globally proficient worker also needs to possess well-developed flexibility, problem-solving and decision-making ability, adaptability, creative thinking, self-motivation, and the capacity for reflection (Kerka, 1993, 6).

How must workforce education change to be effective in this new global economy? Up to now, issues of career choice, work preparation, and occupational information only mattered on a national level. The shift to a global context naturally changes the focus and content of career education and development. Employability security replaces employment security, where workers possess the competencies demanded in the new economy and the ability to expand and adjust those competencies as requirements change (Kerka, 1993, 9).

More and more, the system of matching an individual to a job that is defined independently of the person filling it will change. In the future the qualities of those performing jobs will shape the positions, with status and compensation attached to the person, not the position. VocEd, and education in general, must adapt to meet the needs of this change by educating people in periods of adjustment. VocEd’s new role includes helping people assess the meaning of work, prepare for retraining, cope with uncertainty, and deal with moving to less-satisfying jobs where satisfaction must be found outside the work environment.

The shift from a national to a global economy requires many changes, but good planning and effective education help smooth the transition. The challenges presented by a global economy provide opportunities for work organizations to redesign themselves across national borders; more importantly, education will transcend its traditional boundaries and re-envision ways to prepare people for life and work (Kerka, 1993, 15). VocEd’s ultimate objective, helping students obtain career-oriented, self-sustaining jobs and further learning, will ensure that VocEd rises to the challenge and succeeds in its global mission (U. S., 1996, 6).

References

Berryman, S. E., and others. (1992). Integrating academic and vocational education: An equitable way to prepare middle level students for the future (25 paragraphs). ERIC/CUE Digest, #83. Available on-line: www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed354283.html

Kerka, S. (1993). Career education for a global economy (15 paragraphs). ERIC Digest. Available on-line: www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed355457.html

Kerka, S. (1997). Constructivism, workplace learning, and vocational education (17 paragraphs). ERIC Digest. Available on-line: www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed407573.html

Kerka, S. (1992). Higher order thinking skills in vocational education (18 paragraphs). ERIC Digest. Available on-line: www.ed.gov/databasses/ERIC_Digests/ed350487.html

Kerka, S. (1994). Vocational education in the middle school (12 paragraphs). ERIC Digest. Available on-line: www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed377314.html

Kulik, J. A. (1998). The quality of vocational education curricular tracks and highschool vocational education (12 paragraphs). ERIC Digest. Available on-line: www.ed.gov/pubs/VocEd/Chapter3/Part2.html

Lankard, B. A. (1994). Employers’ expectations of vocational education (12 paragraphs). ERIC Digest #149. Available on-line: www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed376273.html

Lankard, B. A. (1992). Integrating academic and vocational education: Strategies implementation (14 paragraphs). ERIC Digest #120. Available on-line: www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed346317.html

Lankard, B. A. (1993). Integrating science and math in vocational education (13 paragraphs). ERIC Digest. Available on-line: www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed355456.html

Lankard, B. A. (1992). Total quality management: Application in vocational education (16 paragraphs). ERIC Digest #125. Available on-line: www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed347404.html

U.S. Department of Education. (1994). Vocational education here and abroad (8 paragraphs). OERI Bulletin. Available on-line: www.ed.gov/bulletin/fall1994/voced.html

U.S. Department of Education. (1996). Vocational education (19 paragraphs). Working paper. Available on-line: www.ed.gov/updates/Working/voced.htm