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Program Standards For Establishing High Quality Postsecondary Trade And Industrial Education Programs, Beno Rubin

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

The problem of this study was to develop standards that can be used as a basis for establishing high quality postsecondary trade and industrial education programs. There were two research objectives. These included: developing a set of program standards to be used to establish high quality postsecondary trade and industrial education programs and developing descriptors that can be used to assess achievement of high quality postsecondary trade and industrial education programs.

The Delphi technique was chosen for this study to generate consensus regarding the program standards. The panel of experts, comprised of postsecondary administrators of trade and industrial programs, was …

Soft Skills Perceived By Students And Employers As Relevant Employability Skills, Ann-Marie Claudia Williams

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Local employers believe the lack of prerequisite soft skills is inhibiting the graduates from a local community college from securing employment. The rationale of this phenomenological study was to investigate the perceptions of students and employers related to the soft skills needed to be successful in future employment. The theoretical framework was based on Mezirow's transformational and Daloz's mentorship theories. Individual face-to-face, semistructured interviews were used to gather data from 12 business and computer students and 7 employers (N=19) who were selected using purposeful random sampling. The typewritten transcripts of participants' responses were imported in MAXQDA 11, then were open …

Not A Big Stretch: Community College Humanities, Ronald G. Cantor

Maine Policy Review

Today’s community colleges provide low-cost access to degrees in the humanities and social sciences as well as in technical fields and the trades. The humanities are key to developing the soft skills that employers demand most, and therefore they fit the workforce-development mission of community colleges. Since many students can afford no college other than a community college, their educational and career options would be significantly reduced (with negative economic, institutional, and societal repercussions) if community colleges did not offer courses and programs in the humanities. The humanities enrich our world while inspiring insights that help us to achieve practical …