Variables associated with cocurricular participation in vocational student organizations

Abstract

Vocational Education, as a vital part of the secondary school curriculum, has relied upon student organizations as one activity that helps bolster and provide meaningful, practical, real life experiences within the classroom and the work place to secondary students.

It was the intent of this study to investigate which personal and academic variables most accurately explained the nature and magnitude of participation in such vocational student organizations (VSOs). Furthermore, the study explained the effects, both direct and indirect, of the independent variables as implied by a causal model on subsequent participation in vsos during the senior year of high school. Independent variables investigated in the study were identified through a review of the literature and were as follows: ability scores, grade point average, hours worked per week for pay, sex, self-concept, race, socioeconomic status and sophomore (base) year participation.

The study was an ex post facto research design and utilized the 1980 sophomore cohort in the national longitudinal study referred to as High School and Beyond. The analysis for this study utilized correlation, multiple linear regression and path analysis in determining the effects as implied by the causal model.

Findings indicated that: (a) base year VSO participation was the only variable that provided a substantial effect on senior year VSO participation, (b) base year participation was also found to be the variable which best explains the nature and magnitude of the respondents participation in VSOs and (c) the variables of self-concept, sex, race, socioeconomic status, and base year participation indirectly affected senior year participation when mediated by ability scores, hours worked per week and grade point average.