Explanatory Style of Secondary Vocational Educators

Abstract

The explanatory style of secondary vocational teachers in Georgia was determined using the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) developed by Seligman (1984) . The respondents in this study included 219 teachers of agricultural, business, family and consumer sciences, marketing, technology, and trade and industrial education. Means and standard deviations were used to describe the explanatory style of vocational teachers participating in this study. A 1-way analysis of variance was used to determine if a difference existed between teacher composite scores, Composite Negative (CoNeg) and Composite Positive (CoPos), based on the 6 program areas of vocational education. The results of this study indicated that secondary vocational teachers in Georgia had an optimistic explanatory style. Of the 6 program areas, business teachers emerged as the most optimistic based on their mean Composite Positive minus Composite Negative (CPCN) score. The second and third most optimistic program areas were family and consumer sciences and marketing. Of the 6 program areas, agriculture teachers had the lowest mean CPCN score and thus, the less optimistic.The popular education reform movement of the 1980s was primarily directed toward improving the academic skills of college-bound students. Unfortunately, little attention was given to strengthening academic skills of those students who were not going to college or who were in vocational education. During recent years, politicians and business leaders have recognized and acknowledged the need to better prepare students for the workplace ( Smith & Edmunds, 1995 ). The Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act Amendment (1990) and the School-to-Work Opportunities Act (1994) are examples of the national reports that promoted the urgency of preparing students for the workplace. Additionally, initiatives such as Technical Preparation (Tech Prep) and School-to-Work have been developed to address the issue of preparation for the workplace. Although plans have been made and funds allocated for these initiatives through recently passed acts, implementation has to be considered and orchestrated by a professional. Since a characteristic of vocational education is the preparation of students for the workplace, then the most likely professional is the vocational teacher. However, the success of these programs depends on the perspective of the teacher toward change and adaptability. Consequently, vocational educators who can adjust readily to change are needed to initiate these (work-based) programs. According to Pellatiro (1989) , American vocational-technical schools need teachers who exhibit positive professional attitudes. A positive attitude is generally conceived of as a state of readiness to respond effectively in challenging situations. How these vocational teachers react to the various initiates can be detected through one's explanatory style, a descriptive term used for the manner in which individuals habitually explain to themselves why life events occur as they do ( Seligman, 1990 ). This study was designed to examine the explanatory style of vocational educators. Explanatory style has attracted other research interest in recent years ( Peterson & Seligman, 1984 ; Seligman, 1990 ; Phelps & Waskel, 1994 ; Hjelle, Busch, & Warren, 1996 ) and thus guided this research.

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