Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

College and career ready? Perceptions of high school students related to WorkKeys assessments

Public Deposited

Downloadable Content

Download PDF
https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/4q77ft463

Descriptions

Attribute NameValues
Creator
Abstract
  • Concern about college and career readiness has been expressed in both the business and education arenas. Employers are calling for entry-level employees with basic academic skills and educators are being held accountable for student achievement in academic areas similar to those required by employers. In this environment, WorkKeys has emerged as a set of assessments that could respond to the needs of both employers and educators and serve as an indicator to test takers of their readiness for further education or a career. In Alaska, state policymakers selected WorkKeys for use with high school juniors in an effort to measure both college and career readiness, and statewide testing was implemented in the fall of 2010. While past studies involving WorkKeys have focused on assessment results related to workforce development, academic indicators, or demographic variables, the purpose of this study was to describe the college and career readiness perceptions of high school juniors related to the WorkKeys Reading for Information, Locating Information, and Applied Mathematics assessments. A survey administered to 178 urban high school juniors at the time they received their WorkKeys results gathered student perceptions of the WorkKeys assessments in general as well as perceptions of college and career readiness. The key findings of this study were that student perceptions of college and career readiness were much higher than the results of the assessments indicated, and students found value in using WorkKeys results for college and career planning. This suggested the assessment results would be useful in career development interventions with students. This was the first year of mandatory WorkKeys assessments in the state and further study is recommended to gather rural student perceptions, further explore factors that students believe make the assessments useful, and determine the influence of the assessments and related interventions on academic self-efficacy.
License
Resource Type
Date Available
Date Issued
Degree Level
Degree Name
Degree Field
Degree Grantor
Commencement Year
Advisor
Committee Member
Academic Affiliation
Non-Academic Affiliation
Subject
Rights Statement
Publisher
Peer Reviewed
Language
Replaces

Relationships

Parents:

This work has no parents.

In Collection:

Items

Thumbnail Title Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
file details SchultzDeannaD2012.pdf 2017-08-02 Public Download