The adolescence is the important period during which one’s self-identity and values are being established, and searching and preparing for making career decision is one of the primary developmental tasks of this period. Career education of adolescen...
The adolescence is the important period during which one’s self-identity and values are being established, and searching and preparing for making career decision is one of the primary developmental tasks of this period. Career education of adolescence is important in terms of providing the variety of opportunities and supporting to realize a clear goal that helps adolescents to recognize․explore oneself and circumstance regardless of whether having a disability or not. Adolescence career education in Korea was led by the general education until early and mid 1990s. However, the interests in and efforts for adolescence career education have been gradually increasing in the special education field.
Lately, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education is growing actively for the purpose to prepare students as the talented individual appropriate for the future society that requires advanced creativity and innovation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in the general education. In the case of the U.S., the efforts to enhance the opportunities for the students with disabilities to have a STEM education have been made consistently. On the other hand, it is hard to see STEM education provided for the students with disabilities in Korea. STEM education for the students with disabilities is meaningful in regard of the opportunities to enhance the scientific grounding relevant to career and job and understanding scientific technique in everyday life the STEM education provides.
In the case of students with physical disabilities, the ability of individuals is very diverse. Thus, the requirements for having a career are also different. Therefore, a career education should be developed with various contents and methods to fit the individual characteristic and goal. However, current career education for the students with physical disabilities in Korea is limited in contents and methods in spite of its high demand. Therefore, this study developed and conducted a STEM Focused Career Education Program for the students with physical disabilities.
The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of STEM focused career education program on career Identity, Knowledge and preference in STEM areas, and career decision-making self-efficacy of adolescent with physical disabilities. The research participants are twenty students with physical disabilities of resource rooms, special middle school and high school located in the city of S. Ten students are grouped and assigned in pair to each groups: experimental group and control group, who have a similar degree of disability, age, gender, level of intellectual capacity, reading and writing ability, and communication ability. STEM focused career program of this study is organized into three phases: ‘career recognition’, ‘career exploration’ and ‘career preparation’ The program is conducted through a total of fourteen sessions. Each phase includes the elements of STEM career education,‘hands-on activities, mentoring, meeting with the professionals in STEM fields, technology use, and workplace trip.’Also, strategies, such as‘content enhancement, UDL, self-determination, utilizing technology use, and collaborative supports’are used to improve accessibility and promote participations of the students with physical disabilities.
To verify the effects of STEM focused career education program, the two-independent samples t test is used to analyze the difference of changes between the experimental group and control group in career identity, knowledge and preference in STEM, and career decision-making self-efficacy. The study results are summarized as below.
First, according to the results of the comparison of changes in career identity between the experimental group and control group, the enhancement in career identity of the experimental group compare to control group was not statistically significant.
Second, the results from the comparison of change degree in knowledge of the STEM area between the experimental group and the control group indicated that the knowledge enhancement of the students in the experimental group about STEM area was statistically significant compare to the control group.
Third, experimental group students’preference to the STEM area was statistically significantly enhanced according to the comparison of the degree of change in preference to the STEM area between the experimental group and the control group.
Fourth, according to the results from the comparison of changes in career decision-making self-efficacy between the experimental group and the control group, the experimental group students showed a statistically significant enhancement in career decision-making self-efficacy compare to the control group.
This study provides a program connected to career education to the youth with disabilities relatively isolated from STEM education. In this process, the professionals in the diverse fields cooperated and various strategies were utilized to enhance the accessibility to program and encourage participation of the students with physical disabilities. This study has significance that it educated students with physical disabilities to understand the STEM principle and recognize the possibility to explore a career in a new field has significance.