Professional Education and Technical Education Needs of Health Occupations Education Teachers.

Overview & Synopsis

A study examined the professional and technical education needs of health occupations education (HOE) teachers in North Carolina. Utilizing an ex post facto research design, researchers administered professional education needs assessment surveys to all 1,058 teachers in attendance at the 1981 North Carolina Annual Vocational Conference. A separate technical educational needs survey was administered to the HOE teachers in attendance. A comparison of the responses of the eight types of vocational education teachers completing the survey indicated that HOE teachers appear to have the same professional education needs as do all of the other vocational educators, with the exception of the home economics teachers. The top professional education needs identified by the respondents were in the areas of public relations, the design and implementation of community surveys, self-evaluation of instructional effectiveness, budgeting, and long-range plan preparation. Based on the technical education needs survey, it was concluded that staff development activities for the HOE teachers should focus on the state of the art of the national health care system, the use of student and career information in career guidance services, problem solving and decision making, health law, and metric system computations. (MN)