Advancing Academic Achievement Through Career Relevance in the Middle Grades

Abstract

Research and theory suggest that students learn more effectively when they perceive course content as relevant to their futures. The current research assessed the impact of CareerStart, a middle grades instructional strategy designed to advance the occupational relevance of what students are being MICHAEL E. WOOLLEY, PhD, is associate professor,

Who Aspires to a Science Career? A comparison of survey responses from primary and secondary school students

“…The potential for such an approach is reflected by programmes such as Career Start, which involved incorporating career-relevant instruction into lessons in core subjects (mathematics, English/language arts, science and social studies) during the middle school years. A randomised control trial of this programme indicated that these career-relevant lessons led to higher levels of school engagement and valuing and mathematics attainment (Woolley, Rose, Orthner, Akos, & Jones-Sanpei, 2013).…”

Dimensions of science capital: exploring its potential for understanding students’ science participation

“…One such initiative is CareerStart Rose et al, 2012;Woolley et al, 2013), which focused on integrating links to jobs in all areas of the middle school curriculum (including science). While it is too soon to explore outcomes around adult participation, this work did find that the intervention had positive results for school valuing and mathematics attainment.…”

Middle School Teachers’ Perception of Differentiated Instruction on Lower Third Student Achievement

“…In achieving promotional criteria, it is important to align students higher order thinking and relevance of the content to their real life experiences to increase classroom engagement and eventually academic achievement [11]. Increasing student's awareness of the relevance of learning will assist in improving their problem-solving skills and the realization of how such skills apply to real-world applications [12].…”