A Suggested Curriculum in Career Education to Develop Business Secondary Schools Students' Career Knowledge Management Domains and Professional Thinking

A Suggested Curriculum in Career Education to Develop Business Secondary Schools Students' Career Knowledge Management Domains and Professional Thinking

Faten Abdelmagied Elsoudy Fouda
Copyright: © 2016 |Pages: 21
DOI: 10.4018/IJTD.2016040103
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Abstract

The current research aimed at designing a proposed curriculum in career education for business secondary schools students and measuring its effectiveness on developing career knowledge management domains and professional thinking skills. To achieve the desired goal, the researcher applied the system approach in designing the suggested career education curriculum, the developmental research methodology for developing the instructional materials and media, and the quasi-experimental design to measure the effectiveness the proposed curriculum on a sample of the third grade business secondary school students in Egypt. The suggested curriculum contains four main stages/phases: 1) career knowledge generation; 2) career knowledge organization; 3) career knowledge utilization; and 4) career knowledge distribution. These phases were integrated into one system to develop both career knowledge management skills and professional thinking among the target sample. The units of the curriculum were designed in an interactive way according to the principles of the blended-units approach that concentrates on knowledge and knowledge applications for achieving career requirements needed to joining 21st century business and administration jobs. A sample of 50 students enrolled in a business secondary school were selected randomly and divided equally into two groups: the experimental group (n= 25) and the control group (n= 25). The researcher developed two main instruments: 1) an achievement test; and 2) a professional thinking scale. The achievement test included two parts: 1) measuring the professional knowledge, and 2) performance measuring of the skills of designing professional portfolio. In addition, a rubric was used to evaluate the production of the professional portfolio. The findings revealed that the suggested curriculum was effective in developing both career knowledge management domains and professional thinking skills; as there were significant statistical differences between the two groups in favor of the experimental group. A set of educational recommendations were suggested.
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Theoretical Background

Career Education

Moore (1986) defined career education as a directive program covering several areas to guide individuals' awareness of their abilities, interests and aptitudes in order to choose the right professions and have professional thinking.

Career education can be, also, operationally defined as educational model covering areas of professional knowledge management in business and administrative fields to develop business secondary school students' awareness of their abilities, interests and aptitudes in order to choose the right professions and have good professional thinking. It is intended to prepare an individual for a certain profession through a series of selected and hierarchical organized experiences that are represented by a curriculum. Career education is linked to different developmental stages, self- esteem and skill development. It a mental, behavioral serial process that reflects knowledge generation, that is finding, obtaining, organizing, utilizing and spreading of knowledge associated to business and administration to achieve students' professional exploration, preparation and marketization. El-Twessi (2005) referred to career education as educational material that seeks providing juniors with basics for joining labor market or professional work. It is simply defined as the process of finding, obtaining, participating and utilizing knowledge to improve organizational performance. That is, career education is not only limited to storing knowledge, but it also encourages individuals to utilize this knowledge in their daily professions and activities (Laurie, 1997).

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