A comparison of student achievement between two- and three-hour public school trade and industrial education welding classes

The purpose of this research was to determine difference in the level of student achievement in two-hour trade and industrial education welding classes as compared to three-hour classes. It was hypothesized that the achievement of students enrolled in two-hour trade and industrial education welding classes will not differ in achievement from students enrolled in three-hour trade and industrial education classes. Thus, a null hypothesis was to be tested. A welding achievement test was developed and then validated for content by a panel of jurors. The panel of jurors was selected according to pre-established criteria. Refinement of the preliminary draft of the welding achievement test prepared the way for further improvement through a pilot study. The welding achievement tests was administered in May, 1968, to 118 students in seven schools which were located in five states. Statistical treatment of the data established a test reliability of .894. Employing item analysis techniques, 100 questions were selected for the pre-test and the post-test. According to the state directories obtained in May, 1968, seventy-two public secondary schools were operated using either two-hour or three-hour T & I education welding classes. Invitations to participate in the study were mailed to all of the welding instructors. Twenty-eight welding instructors in eleven states accepted the invitation. The pre-test was administered in September, 1968 to 392 students. The results of the pre-test were used for pairing the student by utilizing random procedures. The standard error of measurement from the pilot study was used for setting the limits for pairing. The post-test was administered to 365 welding students in twenty-four schools. The test results of 153 pairs were treated statistically to test the null hypothesis. Teacher evaluation of the students' welding performance was correlated with the test results. The statistical procedure for handling the post-test data employed Student's t and the null hypothesis of no difference between means at the .05 level of confidence. The null hypothesis was tested at the .05 level of significance and it was rejected. It was also rejected at the .01 level of significance. An analysis of the study data, which is based on welding achievement, revealed the following general conclusions: 1. Students who are enrolled in a two-hour T & I education welding class were doing at least as well as, if not better than, the students enrolled in a three-hour T & I education welding class. 2. There was no correlation between the instructor's evaluation of a student's welding performance and a student's welding achievement test results. 3. Two-hour T & I education welding programs appear to be taught by younger teachers who have less trade experience than those who are teaching three-hour trade and industrial education welding programs