Work performance and support needs analysis of students with intellectual disabilities

BACKGROUND: School-to-work transition planning for students with intellectual disabilities should include community-based early work experiences to prepare for possible future integrated employment. Employers have noted job performance levels and appropriate use of supports as important for maintaining employment. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to assess work performance and support needs of students with intellectual disabilities attending a short summer early work experience. METHOD: A small group of secondary-level school students with intellectual disabilities attended a summer-long vocational rehabilitation program where they worked with a job coach at a work setting. Student participants and their job coaches rated their perceptions of the students’ work performance quality and support needs on the Job Observation and Behavior Scale pre-post program. RESULTS: The groups deviated significantly in their pre-assessment and post-assessment ratings. Job coaches and students both reported significant increases in perception of quality of student performance. In addition, job coaches reported students needing significantly less employment supports by program end. Student participants also reported needing less employment supports by program end; however, results were not significant. CONCLUSIONS: When both student and job coach realistically view student work performance and supports needed, the school-to-work transition can be improved.

Development and Validation of a Chinese Version of a School-to-Work Transition Anxiety Scale for Healthcare Students

Objective: The aim of this paper was to develop an appropriate scale measuring healthcare students’ anxiety during the transition from school to work. Methods: After an extensive literature review and panel discussion to prove the face validity and content validity, the initial item pool was reduced to 52 items. In a pilot study, a sample of four hundred and twenty-four healthcare students participated, and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used. Psychometric properties—construct validity, convergent validity, discriminant validity, goodness of fit, and reliabilities—were also analyzed. Results: After the use of EFA, the 52 items were reduced to 31 items in four factors, with 66.70% of the total variance explained. The Cronbach’s alpha values ranged between 0.91 and 0.93. The study also used CFA to validate the EFA model, and the results demonstrated that with the same thirty-one items in a 7-point Likert scale, the model was a better fit in four factors: “inexperience in professional knowledge and skills” (nine items; factor loadings: 0.642–0.867; 43.72% of the variance explained), “fear of death” (eight items; factor loadings: 0.745–0.831; 9.94% of the variance explained), “fear of being infected” (eight items; factor loadings: 0.678–0.866; 7.86% of the variance explained), and “interpersonal interactions” (six items; factor loadings: 0.704–0.913; 5.18% of the variance explained). The CFA model demonstrated a good model fit in the χ2/df ratio (1.17; p = 0.016), CFI (0.99), TFI (0.99), and RMSEA (0.02). The composite reliabilities ranged from 0.89 to 0.92, confirming the StWTA-HS scale’s stability and internal consistency. The convergent validity and discriminant validity were also confirmed. The StWTA-HS scale has been proven to be a stable scale to measure healthcare students’ school-to-work transition anxiety.

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want”: Prevalence and Predictors of the Aspiration–Attainment Gap After the School-to-Work Transition

This study examined the prevalence and predictors of the aspiration–attainment gap (AAG) after the school-to-work transition. We operationalized the AAG as the discrepancy between the socioeconomic status (SES) of young people’s realistic occupational aspirations and that of the position they actually attained. As a case in point, we investigated non-college-bound students transitioning into a vocational education and training (VET) position in Germany. Our aims were twofold: first, to establish how many students experience an AAG of what size; second, to identify characteristics that predict whether students experience an AAG. In this regard, we considered sociostructural characteristics, cognitive ability and school grades, and Big Five personality traits as predictors (i.e., potential determinants) of the AAG. Anal-yses in a representative sample (N = 2,478) of intermediate secondary school (Realschule) students/graduates from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS; Starting Cohort 4) revealed that 45.9% of students experienced an AAG. Two-part regression models showed that the level of aspirations was the strongest predictor of the experience and size of an AAG. Aspirations also mediated the effect of several other predictors, most importantly parental SES and school grades. Some individual resources proved to have contradictory effects: They indirectly increased the risk of experiencing an AAG by raising aspirations, but at the same time they lowered this risk by directly increasing attainment. Overall, our results suggest that the AAG during the transition from school to VET is a widespread experience among students in Germany that is worthy of further investigation.