What Kids and Their Parents Need to Know

"Students’ Perceptions of Future Job Opportunities Influence their Motivational Level of Output" by Clarissa West-White and Teri Castelow for course EDF 5160 in the Spring of 1999.

Ray and Mickelson argue that the fundamental changes in wages, jobs, and future opportunities in the labor market since 1980 have had a negative effect on youths’ school outcomes, motivation and discipline as new workers.  In Restructuring students for Restructured Work: The Economy, School Reform, and Non-college-bound Youths (1993), Ray and Mickelson blame the loss of youth motivation and discipline on corporate restructuring. Corporations, in their quest to cut cost, streamlined the size of their companies as well as their payrolls.  As a result of this “downsizing” many over qualified employees from middle and upper management found themselves looking for jobs, with credentials that were no longer required.  Americans panicked at the thought of college educated adults not being able to find work, and their fears spilled over into the realm of education.  Educators took this one step further and began preaching gloom and doom to their students. Unintentionally, it is believed, teachers led students to conclude that if the job market is strong, they have a better chance at success, therefore, this translated to students that if they had future opportunities for employment, they had better become more motivated and disciplined learners.  This ideology, from business leaders’ point of views, translated into more disciplined motivated workers.  These change of events led researchers to propose that job opportunities positively predict motivation.

In recent years there have been insurmountable inquiries into what motivates students.  Teachers, superintendents, commissioners, and other state and federal personnel have spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars addressing the issue.  Researchers have written dozens of grants and have received substantial monetary awards attempting to ascertain the answer. Each segment searching for someone to indict for students’ lagging performance, parents’ irresponsibility, teachers’ inadequacies, schools’ lack of control, and communities’ failure to act as a village.  Eventually, the blame falls upon the shoulders of often young, poor and undereducated parents. Ray and Mickelson report from their interviews with varying business and educational leaders that poor discipline and motivation were due largely to inadequate and disinterested parents who fail to socialize their youngsters properly (7).  

It is the hope of everyone that these sometime adversaries are able to put aside their differences and find solutions that are capable of being applied generally to all students within the United States and abroad, instead of placing the brunt of the blame on parents.  Unfortunately, many have tried and failed at the attempt to find the elusive answer, and others look at so few variables that the data seems irrelevant. Ray and Mickelson report an unexplored motivational predictor for youths: their perception of future job opportunities.

Why the emphasis on student motivation?  It is reasoned that if students are motivated to learn, then they will be more likely to earn good grades, score well on standardized and admission tests, go on to college, graduate, find a job and be successful.  It is further reasoned that these adults will marry and produce children who will possess the same aspirations as their parents, thereby making it easier for educators, politicians and business leaders to expect and receive higher output from students.  This cycle is jarred when non-college-bound students seek jobs that offer adequate pay and benefits.  The possession of a high school diploma takes on new meaning.  Once, a high school diploma afforded Americans a promise of work.  Work that could support a family of four, a home, car, and pet, but today that same diploma carries little weight.  With it, most students still can’t find work and the work they find is hardly enough to support one, let alone four.  Without it, students appear to be doomed.

Educators and business leaders continue to instill the work ethic in our children and constantly remind them that this high tech world will someday leave them behind if they don’t take their education more seriously. Yet, studies such as Ray and Mickelson found that approximately 55% of all future jobs will require only a high school diploma and some vocational training, and only about 20% of these jobs required at least a four-year degree (7).  So, are educators and business leaders wrong in their assumption?  The problem appears to lie not in their information or intentions, but instead with their failure at understanding the impetus of children’s motivation to do well in school, to receive good grades, to stay out of trouble, etc.  They often point to factors within the home of the child, without taking a closer look at his/her future employment opportunities when speaking the rhetoric of why education is important.

            This study builds on the research conducted by Ray and Mickelson.  Researchers looked at high school students’ perception of future employment opportunities when attempting to measure the output of motivation, for students in Canada, in addition to those in the United States. Many students, from both countries, stated that they had been inundated with information that the world was turning “high tech” and if they didn’t latch on “they would be left behind”.  Teachers seemed to echo this information from television broadcasts or headlines in the paper, which tend to report what they are told by their corporate sponsors, when in fact, the numbers reported by the Bureau of Labor statistics don’t substantiate their “educational crisis.” These statistics report that although 23.4 to 28.6 million jobs were created between 1982 and 1995, only 1 million were in high-tech industries (8).  If these statistics are any indication of future job opportunities, wouldn’t students be better served if informed that they do not have to look forward to a life of drudgery and despair, but instead can find good jobs with a high school diploma and/or some vocational training? 

CASE STUDY

Six thousand students from urban area high schools in Metropolitan Seattle, United States and Montreal, Canada were randomly selected.  Students were asked to complete a survey, which asked them to relay their feelings when they read a number of statements.  In our preliminary investigation, it was discovered through discussion of the instruments, that students had varied definitions of “job opportunities.”  For some, it went beyond flipping burgers at Burger King, although some felt that that was an acceptable definition.  Others had specific references to explain the term for them, phrases like, “office job,” “work requiring computer skills,” and “a job paying more than minimum wage.”  Students’ keen intuition is comparable with statistics gathered in 1988 which stated that half of the full-time year-round jobs created since 1980 pay less than $11,000 a year.  Fifty-two percent of the new jobs created since 1980 have been contingent, and that 65% of the approximately 17 million new jobs created from 1980-1988 pay less than $11,000 (11).  It was settled that for the purposes of this study, good job opportunities were defined as those jobs that offered partial to full benefits and paid above minimum wage.  A few of the statements posed to students follow, along with the Lickert scale used.

1                                  2                                  3                      4                      5

Strongly Agree            Agree              No opinion                  Disagree          Strongly Disagree      

1.  I feel highly confident that I will find a job after graduation.

2.  I think my grades will help determine my success.

3.  I think it’s important to do well in school.

4.  I feel that there are many job opportunities out there for someone like me.

5.  It is important to do well on exams required for college entrance.

RESULTS

          To ensure variability in the dependent variable, motivation, a random sample of the population of students from two comparable cities, one in the US and the other in Canada was taken.   As of 1996 both cities had approximately 3.3 million residents, encountered similar problems within their urban areas and were experiencing economical and structural growth.  Due to the rapid influx of small businesses and corporate expansion, job opportunities would be comparable in both cities. 

     Responses to the statements from Canadian and US students were used, with the students’ race, sex and SES being assigned as controlled variables.  We controlled for these variables since we did not want them to unduly influence the outcome of the remaining variables. US job opportunities and Canadian job opportunities, as perceived by students, were used to see if they were predictors of motivation, and to see if there is a major difference among US and Canadian students’ responses.

Table 1. Regression Estimates of the Determinants of Students’ Motivation (N=6,000)

Variable	b	Beta	T
Race	-.003	-.0003	-.012
Sex	.005	.0005	.035
SES	.102	.065	1.22
US Job Opportunity	.124	.87**	4.21
Canadian “       “	.120	.88**	4.23

*   p<.05

** p<.01

 Table 2. Regression Estimates of the Determinants of Students’ Motivation (N=6,000)

Variable	b	Beta	T
Race	.013	.0013	.032
Sex	-.018	-.0018	-.015
SES	.002	.065	.22
US Job Opportunity	-.034	-.007	-.21
Canadian  “      “	-.030	-.008	-.25

Race (0=White, 1=non-white)

Sex (0=Female, 1-Male)

SES (Mother and Father’s occupation + Mother and Father’s Education)

 Table 3. Correlation Matrix (N=3,000)

	Motivation	Perceived Opportunities
Motivation (US Students)	----	.87**
Motivation (Canadian Students)	----	.88**
Perceived Opportunities in US Students	.87**	---
Perceived Opportunities in Canadian Students	.88**	---
GPA	.55	.50
GPA (Canadian)	.56	.51
ACT scores	.60	.58
ACT scores (Canadian)	.61	.59
In class participation	.56	.52
In class participation (Canadian)	.57	.53
Time Spent on Homework – In school	.78	.77
Time Spent on Homework – In school(Canada)	.79	.78
Time Spent on Homework – Out of school	.85	.80
Time Spend on Homework – Out of school(Canada)	.84	.81

** Significant at the .01 level

Table 1 shows that students’ perception of future job opportunities is a strong, positive predictor of students’ motivation.  When variables associated with student performance were tabulated, the findings showed that those who were motivated by their perception of the future job market, also performed better in class participation (discussion), standardized test scores, spent more time on homework (in and out of school) and have higher GPA’s.  Also, in Table 1 perceived Job Opportunity for students in the US and Canada both show a strong, positive and significant prediction on student motivation.  The US and Canada job opportunities are significant at the .01(99%) level. When either of these variables increases, students’ motivation increases as well.  For instance, when a US student’s perceived job opportunities increases by one standard unit, student motivation will increase by .87 unit deviations.  However, according to Table 2 when Job Opportunities (US and Canada) scores increase, students’ motivation decreases.  Obviously, Table 1 supports the proposition that job opportunities positively predict motivation. Table 3 is a correlation of various variables upon motivation and perceived opportunities.  There is a weak to strong relationship (correlation) with all variables and motivation and perceived opportunities.  For example, .57 for in class participation for Canadian students mean that there is positive and strong relationship between in-class performance and motivation.  .53 means that there is a strong and positive relationship between participation and perception of future job opportunities.  Therefore, it can be said that because they hold positive beliefs about their future job opportunities, they perform better in class (participate more).

CONCLUSION

This study discovered that not only must educators look toward other explanations for motivation, but that they should factor students’ perceived future job opportunities into their equations. Instead of being overly concerned with such social phenomena as race, sex and parents’ income/education, students’ impressions regarding job opportunities must be used as a primary indicator in what motivates students to succeed. This is not to exclude all of these traditional indicators, but rather to state that the quest for obtaining the key to motivation should not stop there.

DISCUSSION

     Educators and business leaders often look for scapegoats when a solution to a problem is more complex than simply passing a few laws or issuing mandates. And as usual, they have chosen parents as their convenient patsies. These defenseless parents are held accountable for the poor work and motivational habits of their children not only at school, but “later at work” (7). Many of the “low-income” parents they targeted place little or no faith in the educational system to educate their children so that they can be productive, because it did not work for them. This could explain their lack of hope and motivation, and the senseless cycle that is created from such impoverished homes.  Ray and Mickelson further “contend that the current “educational deficit” and “motivational gap” emanate from sources beyond putatively unsatisfactory public schools or allegedly inadequate parents” (14).  Clearly, educators and business leaders should converse more succinctly in order to meet the growing concerns students have about future job opportunities.