JVER v29n1 - Editor's Note

Editor's Note

Joe W. Kotrlik
Lousiana State University

We have recently completed our annual meetings in Orlando and several new members of the Editing-Managing Board were elected. I am happy to say that the new members of the Board are following in the footsteps of the many outstanding Board members before them and are making outstanding contributions to the quality of JVER.

Just as this issue was being completed, the debate commenced on the AVERA listserv about whether to change the name of AVERA. This discussion is a follow-up to the discussions held during the AVERA meetings in Orlando in December and that have been in progress for several years. I trust that by the time you receive this issue, this decision will be history and we can move forward together.

Volume 29 Issue 1 contains articles that address varied areas of workforce, career and technical education programs. The first article by Donna Redmann and Joe Kotrlik, "Analysis of technology Integration in the Teaching-Learning Process in Selected Career and Technical Education Programs," addressed the level that instructional technology is integrated in the teaching/learning process in three secondary career and technical education (CTE) programs, namely, agriscience, business, and marketing education. They concluded that CTE teachers are most active in exploring the potential of using technology in the teaching/learning process, and in adopting technology for regular use in instruction, but are not very active experimenting with technology or with advanced technology integration. The CTE teachers did not experience substantial barriers in their efforts to integrate technology in the teaching/learning process.

The second article, "An Investigation of Student, Faculty, and Administration Perceptions of the Application of Accelerated Learning Strategies in the Wisconsin Technical College System" by Alex Birkholz, investigated the perceptions of students, faculty, and instructional supervisors involved with the use of accelerated learning strategies. Objectives guiding the investigation focused on critical dimensions of the methodology and differences in perception between accelerated and traditional students as well as faculty and instructional supervisors involved with accelerated academic programming. Students participating in accelerated courses assigned a different degree of importance to the critical dimensions of accelerated learning as compared to traditional students. Overall, experiences reported by both classifications of students did not differ. Despite meeting fewer course hours, accelerated students reported comparable learning experiences to students in traditional programs.

In their article entitled, "Emerging Educational and Agricultural Trends and their Impact on the Secondary Agricultural Education Program," Marshall Stewart, Gary Moore and Jim Flowers identified emerging trends in education and agriculture and determined their implications on the secondary agricultural education program. This Delphi study identified 12 emerging educational issues and 6 emerging agricultural issues. They concluded that many of the educational issues have not changed dramatically over the years. Agricultural issues seemed to have broadened from a production focus to issues that deal with agriculture's relationship to society.

And finally, Frank Linnehan studied "The Relation of Source Credibility and Message Frequency to Program Evaluation and Self-Confidence of Students in a Job Shadowing Program." In this study involving female high school students participating in a job shadowing program, credibility of the adult moderated the relation between message frequency and student confidence. Students perceived program participation to be more useful if adults were seen as having high credibility than if adults' credibility with the students was low. Additionally, a student's confidence in her ability to be successful in a job was positively related to message frequency, when the adults in the program were credible.

The research reported in these articles makes a substantial contribution to our body of knowledge in vocational, career and technical education. We commend these researchers for their excellent work.

jwk