TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of a Constructivist Career Course on Academic Performance and Graduation Outcomes
AU - Grier-Reed, Tabitha
AU - Chahla, Rose
PY - 2015/5/1
Y1 - 2015/5/1
N2 - Career planning courses are one of the most effective ways to improve career development, and the benefits to career decision-making are well documented. The research base regarding whether career courses contribute to academic outcomes is less well-developed. Although recent findings suggest that career courses may improve retention in the first-and second-year of college, it is not clear that these gains extend to graduation. Hence, we explored years to graduation, credit completion, and cumulative grade point average for 103 university students enrolled in a constructivist career course and 107 students in a comparison group. We also included race or ethnicity as an independent variable. Using composite ACT score and high school rank as covariates, we found no effect for the career course on cumulative grade point average, years to graduation, or credit completion. Additionally, there was no effect for race or ethnicity. Implications for the need to develop more upper division career courses are discussed.
AB - Career planning courses are one of the most effective ways to improve career development, and the benefits to career decision-making are well documented. The research base regarding whether career courses contribute to academic outcomes is less well-developed. Although recent findings suggest that career courses may improve retention in the first-and second-year of college, it is not clear that these gains extend to graduation. Hence, we explored years to graduation, credit completion, and cumulative grade point average for 103 university students enrolled in a constructivist career course and 107 students in a comparison group. We also included race or ethnicity as an independent variable. Using composite ACT score and high school rank as covariates, we found no effect for the career course on cumulative grade point average, years to graduation, or credit completion. Additionally, there was no effect for race or ethnicity. Implications for the need to develop more upper division career courses are discussed.
KW - Academic achievement
KW - academic retention
KW - career constructive approach or postmodern approaches
KW - longitudinal studies
KW - undergraduates or early adults
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84976871570&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1177/1521025115571254
DO - 10.1177/1521025115571254
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84976871570
SN - 1521-0251
VL - 17
SP - 105
EP - 118
JO - Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and Practice
JF - Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and Practice
IS - 1
ER -