Date of Award
2002
Document Type
Practicum
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Programs for Higher Education
Keywords
alumni, alternate hypothesis, capstone course, dependent samples, employer surveys, evaluation methods, graduation, Human Services, item analysis, job search, job search readiness, Job Search Readiness Inventory, job search skills, Lynn University, null hypothesis, posttest, pretest, program graduates, quasi-experimental research design, recommendations, research question, self-reported skills, senior capstone course, students, surveys, t-test for dependent samples, weakness areas
Abstract
The problem under investigation was that alunmi of the Human Services degree program at Lynn University reported that they were not prepared for their job search after graduation. They reported that job search skills should have been part of their education at Lynn University. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of the Human Services senior capstone course on job search readiness. The desired outcome was to improve job search skills of students by incorporating these skills into the senior capstone course. This course is the final course all students take before graduation. The research question was: Do students achieve higher scores on the posttest than on their pretest on the Job Search Readiness Inventory after participation in the Human Service senior capstone course?
A quasi-experimental research design comparing the pretest and posttest means of the Job Search Readiness Inventory of22 students was used to conduct this study. A one-tailed, t-test for dependent samples was used to compare the means.
The result of the study was that a comparison of the pretest and posttest means produced a calculated t = 1.61 with a p = .06. The critical t (1. 72) was larger than the calculated t-value. Based on these results, the null hypothesis was failed to be rejected. The null hypothesis for this study was: There is no significant difference, at the .05 level, in job search self-reported skills between the pretest and the posttest scores of senior Human Services students as a result of participating in the Human Services senior capstone course.
The conclusions derived from this study led to a rejection of the alternate hypothesis which stated that there would be a significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores. This study showed that the Human Services senior capstone course did not improve the job search skills of senior Human Services students.
As a result of this study, recommendations were made to conduct an item analysis of the Job Search Readiness Inventory to try to target specific areas of weakness in the course. Another recommendation was made to use alternative methods to evaluate the actual job search skills of the students instead of using self-reported job search skills. Recommendations were also made to further investigate the job search skills of program graduates via alumni surveys and employer surveys.