Assessing Employers' Expectations of Entry-Level Survival Skills for Light Industrial Occupations
Schutz, Richard Phillip
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/68964
Description
Title
Assessing Employers' Expectations of Entry-Level Survival Skills for Light Industrial Occupations
Author(s)
Schutz, Richard Phillip
Issue Date
1984
Department of Study
Education
Discipline
Education
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Education, Special
Abstract
This investigation applied descriptive social validation methodology to the area of competitive employment. A primary objective of this study was to determine what performance standards potential employers consider to be important for mentally retarded persons' job entry. A second objective was to compare identified competitive employment entry-level skills with those previously identified for entry into sheltered vocational employment settings.
The results of this investigation suggest that descriptive social validation methodology is an effective approach to delineate employer-identified, job entry-level skills. A rank ordering of the employers' responses in decreasing order of agreement provided a means to assess the relative importance placed upon specific criterion items. Utilizing an 80% agreement rule, employers agreed upon 65 survival skills as being important for job entry. The performance standards established by this study are important because they bear little resemblance to previously identified entrance criteria related to sheltered vocational settings.
The descriptive social validation methodology utilized in this investigation represents an approach to empirically identify the content of vocational assessment and training. Identifying a list of social and vocational survival skills potential employers believe are critical for job entry allows vocational and special educators to develop a coordinated and longitudinal curriculum that reflects the demands of future job placements. Vocational training programs that do not consider fully the local standards for job entry and do not reflect these standards in their programmatic efforts, may be less than successful in attempts to place mentally retarded persons into community-based, competitive employment.
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