Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1993

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Major Professor

Gerald D. Cheek

Committee Members

Bill Radcliff, Carroll Coakley, Greg Petty

Abstract

Educational reform was one of the major movements that took place in the nation. At the federal and state levels, legislation was passed that had an immediate impact on vocational education. The reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act of 1990 and the Master Plan for Tennessee Schools Preparing for the Twenty-First Century adopted in 1990 gave mandates to show educational improvement. It is the job task of the vocational administrator to see that the school's vocational programs meet the requirement of the laws, policies, rules and regulations. To aide administrators in evaluating programs according to identified areas specified in the federal and state legislation, the Tennessee Department of Education, Vocational Division, developed a Program Review and Evaluation Instrument for System Administration. The instrument contained 70 special competencies related to the Federal and State legislation which administrators need to help facilitate the program improvement process.

A Special Competency's Inventory for Personnel Directing Vocational Programs was developed based upon the state's instrument. Administrators of vocational programs were asked to respond regarding their perceived level of competence in each of the 70 special competencies and their preference for training methods to obtain competence. The 70 competencies were grouped into 11 categories. Means were tested using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey-Kramer Multiple Comparison Test to see if there were significant differences in their perceived competence for each of the 11 categories. Kendall's Coefficient of Concordance or Agreement was used to measure the degree of agreement that existed among more than two sets of rankings. Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient was used to test the difference between two sets of rankings.

The administrators were asked to identify their preference for six methods of training. The training methods were university courses, State in-service workshops, academies, mentors, university extern programs, and trial/error experience. To test the preferred method of training to acquire competence in the special administrative competencies, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) was utilized. Kendall's Coefficient of Concordance or Agreement was used to measure the degree of agreement that existed among the six sets of rankings.

It was concluded that there were significantly different perceptions of competence for each of the 11 categories of special administrative competence. The category identified by all respondents as having low competence was working with special populations. The training methods most preferred by all respondents were State in- service workshops and administrator academies.

Recommendations were that future studies be conducted to determine vocational administrators' perceived levels and actual levels of competence after training to ascertain any changes that have occurred. It was further recommended that leadership development programs which prepare vocational administrators for supervising programs K-12 be available to all administrators if they have responsibility for vocational education in their school system. College courses pertaining to vocational administration should also consider the results of local needs assessments when designing their course content.

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