A Suggested Curriculum in Career Education to Develop Business Secondary Schools Students' Career Knowledge Management Domains and Professional Thinking

Abstract

The current research aimed at designing a proposed curriculum in career education for business secondary schools students and measuring its effectiveness on developing career knowledge management domains and professional thinking skills. To achieve the desired goal, the researcher applied the system approach in designing the suggested career education curriculum, the developmental research methodology for developing the instructional materials and media, and the quasi-experimental design to measure the effectiveness the proposed curriculum on a sample of the third grade business secondary school students in Egypt. The suggested curriculum contains four main stages/phases: 1) career knowledge generation; 2) career knowledge organization; 3) career knowledge utilization; and 4) career knowledge distribution. These phases were integrated into one system to develop both career knowledge management skills and professional thinking among the target sample. The units of the curriculum were designed in an interactive way according to the principles of the blended-units approach that concentrates on knowledge and knowledge applications for achieving career requirements needed to joining 21st century business and administration jobs. A sample of 50 students enrolled in a business secondary school were selected randomly and divided equally into two groups: the experimental group (n= 25) and the control group (n= 25). The researcher developed two main instruments: 1) an achievement test; and 2) a professional thinking scale. The achievement test included two parts: 1) measuring the professional knowledge, and 2) performance measuring of the skills of designing professional portfolio. In addition, a rubric was used to evaluate the production of the professional portfolio. The findings revealed that the suggested curriculum was effective in developing both career knowledge management domains and professional thinking skills; as there were significant statistical differences between the two groups in favor of the experimental group. A set of educational recommendations were suggested.