Date of Award

Spring 5-2021

Document Type

Honors Thesis

Department/Major

Political Science

First Advisor

Dr. Julia Hellwege

Second Advisor

Dr. Ed Gerrish

Third Advisor

Dr. Karen Card

Keywords

Career planning, CTE, workforce development, brain drain

Subject Categories

Other Political Science

Abstract

This thesis examines South Dakota’s workforce issues and their potential relations

to career planning education curriculum, policies, and practices in the state based

on students’ perspectives. Using 8-12th grade students’ responses from consumer

satisfaction surveys taken before and after a roughly hour-long career planning

workshop the study provides several pieces of evidence of gaps in career planning

education. Based on this evidence and national career planning curriculum

standards or best practices the thesis recommends three actions to improve career

planning education delivery: increasing access to counselors/hiring counselors,

updating curriculum include comprehensive subjects and more often to current

with the job market, and finally introducing short workshops online or in person

to fill in the gaps and help the disparities of Career and Technical Education

(CTE) district to district. These recommendations could help play a role in

stopping the ripple effect failing CTE has on workforce development issues such

as brain drain in South Dakota.

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