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Background: Labor market entry is difficult for two-year college graduates. Job search literature focuses on personal connections, but disadvantaged students often lack useful contacts. Moreover, employers often don't recognize and value two-year college credentials as much as bachelor's degrees. Teacher contacts could help, but studies find that they can be biased against low achievers and minorities. Institutional school placement programs, which have the potential to reduce inequalities and help disadvantaged students in job search, have rarely been studied in the United States. Research Question: How does schoolwide institutional job placement operate in a private two year college with a highly developed program, and is it successful and equitable? Research Design: This study uses a mixed-methods approach, including a qualitative case study and quantitative analysis of a single college's administrative records. Findings: We find that this college created institutional job links that are different from other programs studied in the United States. It equitably serves most students and is unrelated to achievement or race. Although it does not improve students'postcollege earnings, it does improve the skill relevance of participants'postcollege jobs, which is a potentially important indicator of long-term success. Black and Hispanic students who use the program have earnings advantages over Whites, but this is not true for those who find jobs on their own. Conclusions: Job placement can and does occur in two-year colleges in the United States. When programs are institutional rather than based on personal teacher contacts, they can serve students equitably and potentially reduce preexisting sodal inequalities. Colleges can effectively do job matching between the labor market and their students ' qualifications. In so doing they can provide useful recommendations to employers and place students in skill-relevant jobs. Copyright © by Teachers College, Columbia University.

The U.S. has experienced a shift from a manufacturing-based economy to one that overwhelmingly provides services and information. This shift demands that technological skills be more fully integrated with one's academic knowledge of science and mathematics so that the next generation of engineers can reason adaptively, think critically, and be prepared to learn how to learn. Project Lead the Way (PLTW) provides a pre-college curriculum that focuses on the integration of engineering with science and mathematics. We documented the impact that enrollment in PLTW had on student science and math achievement. We consider the enriched integration hypothesis, which states that students taking PLTW courses will show achievement benefits, after controlling for prior achievement and other student and teacher characteristics. We contrast this with alternative hypotheses that propose little or no impact of the engineering coursework on students' math and science achievement (the insufficient integration hypothesis), or that PLTW enrollment might be negatively associated with student achievement (the adverse integration hypothesis). Using multilevel statistical modeling with students (N-140) nested within teachers, we report findings from a quantitative analysis of the relationship between PLTW enrollment and student achievement on state standardized tests of math and science. While students gained in math and science achievement overall from eighth to tenth grade, students enrolled in PLTW foundation courses showed significantly smaller math assessment gains than those in a matched group that did not enroll, and no measurable advantages on science assessments, when controlling for prior achievement and teacher experience. The findings do not support the enriched integration hypothesis. Engineering education programs like PLTW face both challenges and opportunities to effectively integrate academic content as they strive to prepare students for college engineering programs and careers. © 2010.

This paper explores the effects on social inequality in Germany of ongoing changes to the employment system and, thus, vocational education. Results based on an examination of the literature indicate that students from increasingly middle-class backgrounds with higher levels of general, rather than vocational, educational attainment are winning the competition for ever-fewer apprenticeships. Progress for women in education is accompanied by relative declines in men's performance on high school exit examinations and does not translate into success in the employment system. Employers are abandoning the corporate-state organization of vocational education. The paper concludes that school degrees are increasingly important for later career opportunities. As a result, the educational system is increasingly stratified, contributing to social inequality in Germany. © 2010 Taylor & Francis.

Objectives The aim of the study was to assess and improve first-year student pharmacists' satisfaction and learning experience in a Student-Run Free Medical Clinic Project (SFMCP) providing medical care to an underserved population. Methods Two consecutive classes of first-year student pharmacists at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences participated in an Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experience (IPPE) at the UCSD SFMCP. This IPPE involved two inter-professional evening free clinics which provide medical care to an underserved population and opportunities for healthcare professional training and service. Year 1 students completed a self-assessment survey instrument and year 2 students completed the survey instrument plus a new competency checklist tool. Average scores from the self-assessment survey instrument were compared between years 1 and 2. Key findings Initial survey results showed that students felt the SFMCP was worthwhile; however, they did not experience enough involvement in the patient assistance programme or non-pharmacy-related clinic activities. After the competency checklist tool implementation, overall student pharmacist satisfaction of the SFMCP IPPE remained high (88%), participation in identified weak areas improved and students agreed that the tool helped focus their clinic experience. Conclusions Areas of improvement were identified with the survey instrument and the competency checklist tool increased achievement of learning objectives. Overall, student pharmacists felt the SFMCP IPPE was a good learning experience. Practising pharmacists can employ these or similar tools in specific practice settings, to evaluate and help ensure that student pharmacists or interns are achieving applicable learning objectives. © 2010 Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.

Recent developments in computing and mobile technologies have enabled the mobile and ubiquitous learning approach, which situates students in an environment that combines real-world and digital-world learning resources. Although such an approach seems to be innovative and interesting, several problems have been revealed when applying it to practical learning activities. One major problem is owing to the lack of proper learning strategies or tools that can guide or assist the students to learn in such a complex learning scenario. students might feel excited or interested when using the mobile devices to learn in the real world; however, their learning achievements could be disappointing. To cope with this problem, in this study, a knowledge engineering approach is proposed to develop Mindtools for such innovative learning scenarios. Experimental results from a natural science course of an elementary school show that this innovative approach not only enhances learning motivation, but also improves the learning achievements of the students. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Background: Workplace-based learning is a critical component of professional preparation in speech pathology. A validated assessment of this learning is seen to be 'the gold standard', but it is difficult to develop because of design and validation issues. These issues include the role and nature of judgement in assessment, challenges in measuring quality, and the relationship between assessment and learning. Valid assessment of workplace-based performance needs to capture the development of competence over time and account for both occupation specific and generic competencies.Aims: This paper reviews important conceptual issues in the design of valid and reliable workplace-based assessments of competence including assessment content, process, impact on learning, measurement issues, and validation strategies. It then goes on to share what has been learned about quality assessment and validation of a workplace-based performance assessment using competency-based ratings. The outcomes of a four-year national development and validation of an assessment tool are described.Methods & Procedures: A literature review of issues in conceptualizing, designing, and validating workplace-based assessments was conducted. Key factors to consider in the design of a new tool were identified and built into the cycle of design, trialling, and data analysis in the validation stages of the development process.Outcomes & Results: This paper provides an accessible overview of factors to consider in the design and validation of workplace-based assessment tools. It presents strategies used in the development and national validation of a tool COMPASS®, used in an every speech pathology programme in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore. The paper also describes Rasch analysis, a model-based statistical approach which is useful for establishing validity and reliability of assessment tools.Conclusions & Implications: Through careful attention to conceptual and design issues in the development and trialling of workplace-based assessments, it has been possible to develop the world's first valid and reliable national assessment tool for the assessment of performance in speech pathology.

The paper draws upon empirical material from a two year qualitative research project. The paper briefly outlines the key research questions, research design and data collection strategies. The following sections draw on observational, interview and journal data from the learning sites and the teachers and students who work and learn in them are used to show how college-based learning (CBL) is also work-based learning (WBL). We argue that to differentiate between CBL and WBL in this particular case is unhelpful and three separate contexts are identified to show where learning typically occurs for students of animal care. The discussion draws upon Lave and Wenger's 'communities of practice' and Fuller and Unwin's notion of 'expansive learning environments' to illustrate the ways in which full time students of animal care undertake valuable real work (albeit mostly unwaged) on farms, in stables and in reptile houses. Characteristics of communities of practice, namely, recognition of distributed expertise, inclusive language and interactions, ways of communicating about animals and nurturing teacher-student and student-student relations are identified. We differentiate situated learning for vocational students and more fully acknowledge the work-based learning which actually occurs in college. The consensual, inclusive language identified in the two departments is briefly explored with examples of anthropomorphism used to illustrate the indexical way staff and students talk about animals. 'Communities of practice' is a useful metaphor for thinking about the particular learning cultures of the animal care departments. Both departments are characterised by an ethic of care and staff go to great lengths to 'look after the whole student'. What unites the students and their teachers is a real passion for animals. This is a prerequisite for winning a place on an Animal Care course. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Training students by learning and working is one of the talent development models for higher vocational training. It is necessary to build a scientific, rational and practical model to evaluate the quality of higher vocational talent trained by learning and working. An evaluation system is developed taking the consideration of school, enterprises and society. Delphi method is applied to determine the relative importance of each evaluation index weights of the evaluation. A case study was also presented to illustrate the procedure. It was demonstrated that fuzzy synthetic method can appraise the quality of higher vocational talent trained by learning and working in a more flexible and more scientific way. ©2010 IEEE.

Complexity is a feature common to all vocational education and training (VET) governance arrangements, due to the wide range of students VET systems caters for, and the number of stakeholders involved in both decision making and funding and financing. In this article, Pierre and Peter's framework of governance is used to examine complexity in VET governance models. Criticism has been made of complex decision-making processes in VET governance models, whether stemming from co-determination with social partners or shared responsibilities in federations between national and sub-national governments, with the contention being that such complex processes reduce system adaptability. This article argues that the focus on decision-making processes is misguided and the effects of other complex system processes should be considered. First, debate needs to be broadened to take into account how governance frameworks emerge from historical and political differences, such as the impact of federal structures of government. Adaptability depends on more than decision-making processes. Second, international comparisons suggest that complex policy instruments, whether the result of convoluted decision-making or not, may demonstrate greater adaptability in the system but also threaten system coherence. Finally, complex processes for allocating resources and generating feedback seem to increase system accountability, although unintended consequences for other system outcomes may yet emerge.

The need for workforce ready students can be met through the use of Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs. Identification of workplace skills that are rewarded and required by employers will foster relationships between CTE programs and workforce employers. These relationships will also impact economic growth, school-to-work efforts, and the global workforce. This chapter addresses the workforce competencies of business and industry and CTE programs as well as addressing shortfalls in these areas. Future trends are also identified in regards to workforce competencies in CTE programs. © 2011, IGI Global.