Teaching for the Future:
Evaluating Intern Teachers’
Career Education Projects
Annelise Welde, B.A., M.Ed. Counselling Psychology Student
Kerry Bernes, B.Ed., M.Sc., Ph.D., R.Psych., ABPP
Professor and Assistant Dean, Graduate Studies and Research
in Education, University of Lethbridge
Cannexus15 Presentation
January 27, 2015
Background
• Aims of career education:
• Self-exploration; career planning skills; explore career options
• Connect academic learning with future life and career goals
• Harkins, 2000; Orthner, Jones-Sanpei, Arkos, & Rose, 2013; Super, 1975
• Established needs:
• Integrated career education curriculum
• Bernes & Magnusson, 2004; Harkins, 2000; Heibert, 1993; Orthner et al.
• Career development training for pre-service teachers
• Bernes & Magnusson; Millar, 1995; Schultheiss, 2008; Super
Background
• University of Lethbridge: Two career education courses implemented
for K-12 teachers
• Course 1: Introduced to career and life planning; prepared to integrate
career education into teaching
• Course 2: Implemented career education projects in final practicum
placements; submitted final reports and standardized student evaluation
surveys for credit
• 54 intern teachers, 56 projects, 1389 students from 2009-2014
Purpose & Research Questions
• Purpose: Analyze student evaluations and teachers’ final
reports to identify…
• What interventions are rated as most effective at each grade
level?
• What do students like most?
• What are students’ common recommendations?
• Project strengths, challenges, and recommendations
Goal: Enable educators to “teach for the future.”
Sample
Methods
Content analysis – method for analyzing archival data
Berg, 2008; Elo & Kyngas, 2008; Forman & Damschroder, 2008; Prasad, 2008; Schreier, 2012
• Three overlapping phases:
• Immersion, Reduction, and Interpretation (Forman & Damschroder)
• Advantages:
• Analyze large quantities of quantitative and qualitative data
• Targeted towards research questions
• Challenges:
• Non-linear format
• Time-consuming
Instruments
• Two primary mixed-methods coding frames
• Developed deductively based on existing data – structure of
original assignments and student evaluation surveys
•
Five additional coding frames
• Derived inductively from emerging themes in data
• Pilot-testing on 5 projects and surveys from category
• Reliability testing on 30% of coded data - >88% agreement
Project Coding Frame
•
Context of the Teaching
Environment
• Grade Level
• Grade Level Category
• Number of Students in Class
• Targeted Curriculum
• Summative Evaluation Results
• Most popular intervention
• Least popular intervention
• Overall participation
• Overall helpfulness of activities
• Strengths
•
Detailed Description of Lesson
Plan
• Number of Lessons
• Duration
• Challenges
• Recommendations
Student Evaluation Coding
Frame
•
Overall Participation Score: ___
•
Perceived Helpfulness of Each Intervention: (Not Good at All, Good, or Great)
•
Perceived Effectiveness of Unit (I don’t agree, I don’t know, or I agree)
•
•
•
•
•
Outcome 1: This [project] helped me to learn a lot about myself
Outcome 2: This [project] helped me to learn a lot about careers
Outcome 3: This [project] made me excited about what I could do with my life
Outcome 4: This [project] made me want to learn more about different careers
Open-Ended Responses
• What I liked about this project:
____________________________________________
• How this project could be made better:
____________________________________________
Analysis
• Quantitative analysis
• SPSS: Descriptive statistics
• Frequency counts of categorical data; mean, mode, and median
results in each coding category
• Produce frequency tables to summarize results
Qualitative analysis
• NVivo 10: Qualitative content analysis
• Reduce data, convert to codes
• Use codes in new coding frames
• Determine frequencies of codes/responses
Highest Rated Interventions:
Elementary
• Highest % rated Great by students
Intervention
Number of
Students
% Rated Great
Research Subject-Specific
Careers
10
100
Guest Speaker
63
94
Career Dress-Up
15
94
Guess the Job Game
28
93
Career/Job Cut-Out
49
89
Highest Rated Interventions:
Junior High
• Highest % rated Great by students
Intervention
Number of
Students
% Rated Great
Career Presentation
78
68
Research Careers
131
65
Vision Board
15
63
Research Subject-Specific
Careers
43
61
Values Inventory
13
59
Highest Rated Interventions:
Senior High
• Highest % rated Great by students
Intervention
Number of
Students
% Rated Great
Simulated Day in Career
21
81
Self-Portrait
12
80
Career Budget
8
73
Subject-Specific Lesson
19
73
Poster
5
71
Standardized Learning
Outcomes
Percentage of Agreement with Learning Outcomes
100
Percentage of Agreement
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Helped learn about self
Helped learn about careers Made excited about life
Learning Outcomes
Elementary
Junior High
Senior High
Want to learn about
different careers
Student Responses: Likes
What did students like most about the projects?
Number of Responses
Most Common Student Responses: Likes
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Response Theme
Elementary
Junior High
Senior High
Student Responses:
Recommendations
What were the most common student recommendations?
Number of Responses
Most Common Student Responses:
Improvements
200
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Response Theme
Elementary
Junior High
Senior High
Project Reports: Strengths
What were the most common strengths across projects?
Percentage
Percentages of Common Project Strengths by
Grade Level
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Aware of
uniqueness
Students had
fun
Engaging
lessons
Taught career
planning skills
Strength Category
Elementary
Junior High
Senior High
Broadened
career
aspirations
Project Reports: Challenges
What were the most common challenges across projects?
Percentage
Percentages of Common Challenges by Grade
Level
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Insufficient time
Boring/unexciting Unable to complete Did not help learn
activities
about careers
Challenge Category
Elementary
Junior High
Senior High
Project Reports:
Recommendations
What were the most common recommendations across projects?
Percentage
Percentages of Common Recommendations by
Grade Level
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
More time
Integrate into
other subjects
More career Career research
planning
activities
Recommendation Category
Elementary
Junior High
Senior High
More group
work
Recommendations for Practice
• Integrate career education into other subjects
• Expose students to multiple career options
• Use exciting, engaging interventions – tailored to class
• Provide opportunities for students to work together
• Match activities to grade level, ability, interest
Recommendations for Practice
• Use technology to integrate ICT outcomes
• Provide enough time and use adequate explanations
• Capitalize on egocentrism and self-interest
• Connect self-awareness to career options
• Use career education as a tool to enhance engagement
Future Research
• Examine longitudinal impacts of career education training
on teaching practices
• What aspects of course were most useful?
• What strategies do teachers continue to use?
• Examine longitudinal impacts of integrated career
education on student outcomes
• How do students benefit from exposure to integrated career
education across multiple courses and grades?
Acknowledgements
This research was supported through funding provided by the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Special thanks to thesis committee members, Dr. K. Bernes, Dr. T. Gunn
& Dr. S. Ross, and to the intern teachers and their students who
completed these projects and made this analysis possible.
Questions
Dr. Kerry Bernes
Professor and Assistant Dean,
Graduate Studies and
Research in Education
Faculty of Education
University of Lethbridge
Email: kerry.bernes@uleth.ca
Dave Redekopp, PhD
Donnalee Bell
Serena Hopkins
For more info/questions, contact:
• Canadian Career Development
Foundation
• www.ccdf.ca
• 613 729 6165
• d.bell@ccdf.ca; s.hopkins@ccdf.ca
Annelise Welde
M.Ed. Counselling
Psychology Student
University of Lethbridge
welde@uleth.ca
• Life-Role Development Group Ltd.
• www.life-role.com
• 780 451 1954
• liferole@telusplanet.net