Programs of Study – Year 3 Joint Technical Report
Programs of Study (POS) were the
most significant new requirement in the 2006 reauthorization of
the federal legislation for career and technical education (CTE).
Consequently, the National Research Center for Career and
Technical Education (NRCCTE) established as one of its priorities
the development of information on the operation and effectiveness
of POS. The NRCCTE is conducting four projects that examine POS
from different perspectives. Three are longitudinal studies; due
to the nature of their methodologies, they are at different
stages of implementation. These three studies use some common
data collection methods that allow for comparisons across studies
and use others that are specific to their research questions.
This document comprises the second joint report related to these
three projects and presents their status as of July 31, 2010, the
end of Year 3 of the current NRCCTE cooperative agreement with
the U.S. Department of Education. The first joint report
presented findings and observations derived from the first two
years of these projects (Programs of Study Joint Technical
Working Group, 2010). The fourth project described in this report
was conducted entirely during NRCCTE Year 3. This project used
case study methods to describe how six states were implementing
POS during the first half of 2010, four years after POS had
become part of the federal legislation for CTE. Before discussing
the four projects, we provide some background on how POS came to
be required by Perkins IV.
Programs of Study Joint Technical Working Group. (2011, July). Programs of study: Year 3 joint technical report. Louisville, KY: National Research Center for Career and Technical Education, Louisville, KY.