Vocational education has become a huge enterprise in the United States. Federal involvement and the emphasis on the evaluation of vocational education has increased in recent decades. Many positive results concerning the effects of vocational education have been found by research. Since many factors other than the program itself may influence the effects of participation in vocational education, studies which include those factors are needed.

This study focused on participation in public school vocational education, along with student background factors and in-school factors to determine their effects upon students post high school activities. The study used the information collected by the High School and Beyond surveys and analyzed those data using path analysis to determine the effects of selected factors upon post high school activities. However, the effects of participation in vocational education were of primary concern in the study.

Six basic and five composite activities with a total of sixteen dependent variables were studied. Vocational education participation was found to have no effects upon the post high school activities of military service, homemaking, unemployment, and employability, and have negative effects upon participation in academic education related activities. The findings concerning vocational types of activities were mixed. Vocational education participation does not influence specific vocational types of activities such as only working or only pursuing additional vocational education. However, when vocational types of activities were studied in combination with other activities positive effects were found.