Employer's Decision to Hire Secondary Career and Technical Education Completers Based Upon the Pennsylvania Skills Certificate
Open Access
- Author:
- Leibfreid, Patricia G.
- Graduate Program:
- Workforce Education and Development (PHD)
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- November 09, 2021
- Committee Members:
- Heather Zimmerman, Professor in Charge/Director of Graduate Studies
Wesley Donahue, Major Field Member
Mark Threeton, Major Field Member
John Ewing, Outside Unit & Field Member
Cynthia Pellock, Chair & Dissertation Advisor - Keywords:
- Pennsylvania Skills Certificate
Credentials
Secondary CTE
Employers' perception
Experimental study
CTE Assessment - Abstract:
- The purpose of this investigation was to discover the employer’s perception of the Pennsylvania Skills Certificate. The credential is issued to secondary career and technical education program completers in the state who score advanced on their end-of-program assessments. The certificate is intended to provide for employers seeking to hire an entry-level job candidate a means of ascertaining the technical skills, knowledge, and abilities of the applicant. This experimental study involved institutional food worker employers whose organizations are located in the Allegheny Mountains Region of Pennsylvania. Participants were provided a link to an online survey which collected both quantitative and qualitative responses to questions relating to the certificate itself, its signaling power, and the labor market advantage that holders of the credential possess. After initially being queried as to their degree of familiarity with the certificate, half of the participants were randomly provided with a definition of the credential. Most employers were not familiar with the Pennsylvania Skills Certificate. Nominal data indicated that the intervention resulted in a positive correlation between an individual holding the certificate and that applicant having more job knowledge, skills, and abilities; as well as a labor market advantage over an individual who did not hold the credential. However, ordinal and nominal data which analyzed specific constructs relating to the credential provided conflicting results. Although this study took place amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, almost all participants indicated that the global epidemic did not influence their responses. While the generality of this study’s results can only be confirmed with future studies, this scientific investigation has added empirical evidence concerning employer’s perceptions of the Pennsylvania Skills Certificate and has delivered additional evidence of the complications relating to the myriad of credentials and the value an employer places upon such qualifications in the United States.