V. Some Priorities: A Personal View

In this review of PSOE research, I have presented far too many topics for NAVE to support over the next three years. I presume that the process of selecting topics will be one in which the Independent Advisory Panel and others within government choose among these topics based on their own conception of what NAVE should accomplish and which issues are most important. And I hope that other topics can become part of a broader agenda on PSOE that can be carried out by OERI and its grants program, by the National Center on Postsecondary Improvement sponsored by OERI, by the new National Center for Research in Vocational Education, and by other federal and state research efforts.

However, I also offer my own priorities, with some brief justification. In rough order they are as follows:

1. NAVE needs to assess a few practices supported by Perkins to determine how effective they have been. These include the current development of accountability and performance measures, and the efforts to broaden PSOE by requiring the incorporation and integration of academic competencies.²⁵ In contrast, I see no reason to study tech prep yet one more time; the findings aren't going to change. In examining these Perkins requirements, questionnaire surveys to local officials are pointless without case studies to help interpret them, so I would recommend more case studies and a shorter general questionnaire rather than relying (as the previous NAVE did) wholly on long, multi-part questionnaires.

2. No doubt NAVE must consider the question of where the money goes (see I.4). But this is a relatively uninformative counting exercise without some kind of context about the alternative resources available. Therefore, this exercise should be accompanied by (a) a fuller effort to determine where other sources of federal funds go, and why (if I am right) there are proportionately so few of them in community colleges and other subbaccalaureate institutions; and (b) determining how the patterns of state resources affect the process of allocating federal funds (from III.3).

3. The study of who counts as a completer is among the most critical issues facing PSOE, and involves both student issues and the apparent growth of new kinds of credentials, including licenses and industry-generated credentials. This ought to be a high priority for NAVE; several of the specific research activities undertaken for this, including surveys and interviews with students, will shed light on other questions including elements of the "new fluidity."

4. There are at least two powerful reasons to undertake a limited number of community case studies: to understand the planning now taking place with WIA, welfare, and other work force development programs (see II.5 on linkages with other programs); and to identify the institutions and the issues involved in the "new fluidity" (III.2). Thus a nested design of questionnaires to a large number of PSOE providers, a smaller number of local case studies, and a still smaller number of community case studies would address a large number of issues.

5. Of the multiple dimensions of effective practice I presented in Section II, several will be covered in research I have already outlined: the nature of licenses and industry-generated credentials in examining the issue of completers, the use of data in analyzing accountability, and linkages to other programs in community case studies. For me, the are two other major candidates for NAVE research in this section: the pedagogy of PSOE (including the pedagogy of work-based learning), since this topic has been so rarely addressed; and further analysis of state UI data systems, including the possibility of an outlier study.

6. The final question-what the federal role in PSOE should be — might be undertaken by NAVE staff, but certain supporting activities — particularly an issues and options paper, and a consensus-generating activity with various constituencies present — would be helpful in formulating the alternatives.

The issues surrounding PSOE-including the need for greater visibility and stature, the requirements for additional research, and the development of a compelling vision for federal policy — are much larger than a single research exercise like NAVE can address. But NAVE can at least help define what these issues are, and therefore help create an agenda for the twenty-first century.

This page last modified August 11, 1999 (glc).

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