Date of Award
2002
Document Type
Practicum
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Programs for Higher Education
Advisor
Dr. John A. Morgan, Jr.
Keywords
academic year, chi-square test, electronic job search, electronic resume, employers, Excel, Internet, job interviews, job offers, job placement, job search, knowledge, online job application, participants, plain text resume, quasi-experimental research, relationship, research questions, resume conversion, satisfaction, self-assessment, students, traditional resume, workshops
Abstract
The problem under investigation was that the knowledge and satisfaction with job search results of students who participated in the Electronic Resume workshops and those who did not was unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine whether there was a significant relationship in the knowledge and job search results between workshop participants and nonparticipants.
There were eight research questions asked: (1) "Is there a relationship between participating in the electronic resume workshop and response to converting a traditional resume to plain text?" (2) ''Is there a relationship between participating in the electronic resume workshop and understanding the importance of identifying key words when conducting a job search?" (3) "Is there a relationship between participating in the electronic resume workshop and understanding the importance of a self-assessment prior to beginning an on-line job search?" ( 4) "Is there a relationship between participating in the electronic resume workshop and how to complete an Internet job application?" (5) "Is there a relationship between participating in the electronic resume workshop and the ability to post a plain text resume to an employers' web board?" (6) " Is there a relationship between participating in the electronic resume workshop and familiarity with electronic job search etiquette?" (7) "Is there a relationship between participating in the electronic resume workshop and understanding the importance of conducting Internet research about companies before starting an electronic job search?" (8) "Is there a relationship between participating in the electronic resume workshop and the number satisfied and the number not satisfied between participants and non-participants job search results?''
A Quasi-experimental research designed to determine the relationship of a treatment on two groups was used to conduct the study. Data were collected and recorded in Excel. The samples consisted of one group of 364 students who participated in the workshops and the second group of246 students who did not participate in the workshops during the 2000-2001 academic year. A contingency chi-square test was used to determine the level of significance between the workshop participants' and non-participants'.
The critical value with a degree of freedom (dt) of 4 and a level of significance of0.05 was 9.49. Based on the test results, the null hypothesis stating that there was no significant relationship between how students send out resumes and the satisfaction of electronic job search results was rejected at the 0.05 level of significance for the eight questions.
Eight chi square tests were calculated. Conclusions drawn from the study suggest that the results of the alternate hypothesis, stating that there was a significant relationship between how students send out resumes and the satisfaction of electronic job search results, were accepted for questions 1-8. The study, designed to determine the relationship between participation in the electronic resume workshop and knowledge and satisfaction of job search results, demonstrated that the workshops did create significant results in the samples.
As a result of this investigation, it was determined that all research questions identified a significant relationship between participating in the electronic resume workshops, knowledge and satisfaction of job search results. Further study is recommended to identify other factors that may impact the outcome. These may include identification of job interviews, job offers, and job placement.