Toward the Development of a Program Quality Framework for Career and Technical Education Programs: A Researcher-Practitioner Collaborative Project
Author: Brodersen, R. Marc
Date: 2016-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Career Education,Technical Education,Accountability,Program Evaluation,Partnerships in Education,State Agencies,State Policy,Educational Policy,Content Analysis,Course Content,Delivery Systems,Counseling,Stakeholders,Student Leadership,Student Evaluation,Teacher Recruitment

Career and technical education (CTE) programs of study are subject to rigorous state and federal accountability systems that provide information on key student outcomes. However, while these outcome measures can form a basis for identifying high- and low-performing programs, they are insufficient for answering underlying questions about how or why that level of achievement was attained. Given the variety of CTE program guidance and program quality frameworks currently available, the Regional Educational Laboratory Central (REL Central) partnered with members of its college and career readiness research alliance (CCRRA) consisting of state directors of CTE programs in the central region. This study was designed to address the following questions: (1) What CTE program components do state educational agency (SEA) policies and guidance focus upon in the central region? and (2) How are current national CTE program frameworks structured, and what program components are the focused on. To address these research questions, REL Central and ACTE conducted reviews of SEA and national framework documents, respectively. This study was designed to address the following questions: (1) What CTE program components do state educational agency (SEA) policies and guidance focus upon in the central region? (2) How are current national CTE program frameworks structured, and what program components are the focused on. To address these research questions, REL Central and ACTE conducted reviews of SEA and national framework documents, respectively. REL Central collected CTE program guidance and policy documents from the seven states composing the REL Central region: Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. The National Association of State Directors of Career and Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc) provided additional policy documents they had previously collected from the central states. ACTE collected program frameworks developed by national organizations. REL Central and ACTE conducted a document analysis of state CTE program guidance and policies, as well as national program frameworks. These documents were examined to identify and summarize the various CTE program components focused on. Analysis of the two sets of documents revealed nine broad categories of content: (1) Course content; (2) Course delivery; (3) Guidance and counseling; (4) Stakeholder partnerships; (5) Student leadership; (6) Student assessment; (7) Program outcomes; (8) Administrative program guidance; and (9) Administrative guidance for CTE teacher recruitment and training. Examination of the frequency with which each content area was addressed showed state and national guidance most frequently addressed stakeholder involvement and partnerships, course content and delivery, student assessment, and career guidance and counseling. Many of the other areas focused upon were related to administrative requirements. [SREE documents are structured abstracts of SREE conference symposium, panel, and paper or poster submissions.]