Research offers educators information on the skills that will be needed by office employees as new technologies are introduced into the workplace. Surveys and studies sponsored by private organizations as well as private businesses indicate that employers still require secretaries to have a solid foundation in the more traditional secretarial…

Coaching is needed at every stage in the transition from school leaver to effective worker. Teachers may need more industry work experience to become more effective coaches in the transition phase. A counselor or special teacher from the schools could follow the new recruits into the work force to give continued support and to act as a mediator…

Profound changes in the economy and the labor market have an effect on the role of employer-sponsored training in preparing and educating the country's work force. On the demand side of the labor market, these changes include the increase in international trade, the changing economic status of the United States relative to its trading partners,…

Work force development systems have three primary subsystems: youth development and preparation for employment, adult work force entry, and worker retraining and transition assistance. Programs targeting youth pose one of the greatest challenges to those striving to develop or improve work force development systems. School-to-work will not…

More than 90 surveys conducted during the past 40 years covering a variety of disabling conditions and employers' concerns regarding workers with these conditions were reviewed. The goal of this review is to identify, develop, test, and disseminate interventions for rehabilitation practitioners to use in job development and placement. The review…

A survey of over 3,800 employers found that school-provided vocational training was required for 9.5 percent of the jobs studied and "important but not required" for another 37.9 percent. In this study, new employees with relevant vocational education exhibited these characteristics: (1) were 6.5 percent more productive 6 to 36 months after being…

Over the past decade, research by cognitive scientists has been building a clearer understanding of how people learn in school and out. A review of the various streams of cognitive research has implications for vocational education. Research has determined characteristics of effective workers and how people become effective workers. Some…

The importance of a skilled and highly educated workforce to economic well-being is widely recognized, and the relationship between skills and income is becoming stronger over time. Largely as a result of growing demand for skilled workers, state-level training programs are becoming increasingly important as complements to federal programs.…

This report was written for the Technology Policy Task Force of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives. The report examines the nature and history of technological change, its impact on large and small firms and their workers, and its policy implications. The paper stresses that individuals, schools, firms,…

Health care is demanding increasing resources and attention in numbers of health care workers, in levels of skills required, in time spent in training, and in dollars expended. A greater spectrum of skills is required to cope with increasing health care demands, yet trends toward specialization and fracturing of responsibilities assigned to health…

This paper synthesizes issues and directions that a review of Australian apprenticeship and traineeship literature suggested. An overview discusses the paper's basis, which was a survey of 125 Australian references from 1985-99. Chapter 2 categorizes issues into seven groups, discusses them, and draws out salient themes. (The groups concerned…

Existing research on vocational education and training (VET) for entry-level employment in Australia was reviewed. According to the review, research on entry-level VET has enhanced knowledge related to the following: competence requiring knowledge and understanding as well as performance; graded standards-based assessment; problems of policy…

The 2000 Student Outcomes Survey was a national survey of students who undertook vocational education and training (VET) during 1999 at a technical and further education (TAFE) institute in Australia. Questionnaires mailed to stratified, randomly selected samples of graduates and module completers yielded national response levels of 55.8% and…

A task force was convened to identify the nature, extent, and pattern of skill needs and shortages for managerial occupations in the United Kingdom (UK). The task force began by examining the key challenges facing managers in the UK. The following factors were among those considered: economic policies promoting liberalization and deregulation;…

The question of how to best prepare nurses for practice continues to be debated extensively. The crux of the debate is whether a bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) should be required of all registered nurses in the United States or whether an associate degree in nursing (ADN) and diploma programs adequately prepare novice nurses for practice.…