Employability Skill Acquisition of Career and Technical Education Students

The purpose of this study was to describe and compare the acquisition of employability skills of Cooperative Education students participating in an employability skills training program with those students who chose not to participate in Cooperative Education at the Franklin County Career and Technology Center in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Additionally, the study described the factors that affected employability skill acquisition, specifically gender, career major, grade point average, and post graduation plans. Employer and student perceptions of acquisition of employability skills were also described. While a considerable amount of information has been written about workplace skills that warrant employability success, little has been written concerning the acquisition of employability skills of high school students in career and technical preparation programs. Using a static group pretest-post-test design, a self administered data collection instrument was distributed to 33 cooperative education students, their 36 employers and 31 students not enrolled in cooperative education. Results of the study showed that students were more positive than employers about their employability skill acquisition. Pre-test scores were higher than post-test scores among students. Only post graduation plans, as it affected the technical literacy domain, appeared significantly impact a student\u27s acquisition of the employability skills needed for workplace success