Attitudes, perceptions, and guidance practices of Illinois guidance directors concerning vocational education in secondary schools

Purpose. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the attitudes, perceptions, and guidance practices of guidance directors concerning vocational education in comprehensive secondary schools in Illinois. A secondary purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among the attitudes, perceptions, and counseling practices of guidance counselors concerning vocational education and selected demographic variables.Methodology. The target and accessible populations were all guidance directors in comprehensive secondary schools in Illinois. Proportionate stratified random sampling was used to determine the actual sample of 253 guidance directors, with size of high school enrollment as the stratifying variable. A pilot study revealed that the questionnaire, developed by the researcher, possessed validity and reliability. Questionnaires were mailed to subjects in April, 1988. Reminder postcards and follow-up questionnaires were also mailed. Statistical procedures used to address this study's research questions were: frequency distributions, percentages, means, standard deviations, t-tests, analysis of variance, correlations, and multiple regression. Since no significant differences between respondents and non-respondents were observed, the results obtained from the respondents were generalized to the entire sample and the target population.Findings and conclusions. (1) Guidance directors had generally positive attitudes toward vocational education in comprehensive secondary schools (3.63 on the 5-point scale). (2) Guidance directors were generally uncertain concerning their perceptions of vocational education in their schools (3.30). (3) The overall program quality mean was higher for business education (3.98) compared to agricultural education (3.49), home economics (3.44), and industrial education (3.41). (4) Departmental guidance practices concerning vocational education were perceived to be generally positive (3.74) by guidance directors. (5) Significant, positive relationships were observed between guidance directors' attitudes toward vocational education and departmental guidance practices (r =.60) and between their perceptions of vocational education in their schools and departmental guidance practices (r =.42).U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio