Work values and attitudes instruction as viewed by secondary trade and industrial education teachers
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Abstract
The literature suggests that work values and attitudes are just as important, if not more so, than cognitive and psychomotor skills. However, there is little data in the literature which actually describes the work values and attitudes that trade and industrial instructors teach and the pedagogical techniques they employ to teach them.
The primary objectives of this study were to identify the work values and attitudes that trade and industrial instructors teach and to describe the pedagogical techniques they use to teach these skills. Another objective of this study was to deter mine whether work values and attitudes are taught incidentally with cognitive and psychomotor skills, or via targeted learning activities.
This study utilized the face-to-face interview technique to collect data. The sample for this study was composed of 5O secondary trade and industrial instructors who were nominated by their administrators as successful in teaching work values and attitudes. Because of the qualitative nature of this study, the analysis explored relationships between the specific occupational area of trade and industrial instructors and the work: values and attitudes they reported teaching. In addition, relationships were explored between the occupational area of the instructors and the pedagogical techniques they employed to teach the work values and attitudes. During analysis, examples and behavioral events provided by the instructors were examined.
The major conclusions of this study were: (1) Instructors directly and indirectly teach numerous types of work: values and attitudes to their students. However, the most emphasized work values and attitude clusters were Ambitious, Cooperative/Helpful, Accurate/Quality of Work, Dependable/ Reliable/Responsible, and Dedicated/Devoted/Honest/ Loyal/Conscientious. (2) Instructors teach work: values and attitudes that have been identified in the literature as most important. Though it became evident that instructors emphasized some work values and attitudes more than others, all the identified work values and attitudes have been recognized in the literature as important. (3) The instructors reported using several different pedagogical strategies to teach work values and attitudes. The most frequently identified pedagogical strategies were: reward structure, group discussion, one on one counseling, role modeling, and role playing. (4) The majority of these secondary trade and industrial instructors taught work values and attitudes incidentally with cognitive and psychomotor skills. (5) These secondary trade and industrial instructors used both democratic and indoctrinational pedagogical techniques extensively to teach work values and attitudes.