An Evaluation of United States Business Bachelor's Degree Programs in Preparing Graduates for Employment - Research Paper Example

An Evaluation of United States Business Bachelor's Degree Programs in Preparing Graduates for Employment TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER ONE: THE PROBLEM 2 Problem Background 2 Purpose of the Study 8 Research Questions 9 Limitations and Delimitations 9 Definitions 11 CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ## Introduction ## List Your Heading Titles ## Number of Heading Titles Will Vary ## Subheadings are Indented ## Subheadings are Indented ## List Your Heading Titles ## List Your Heading Titles ## CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY ## Research Design ## Selection of Participants ## Instrumentation ## List Instrument Name ## List Instrument Name ## Methodological Assumptions ## Procedures ## Data Processing and Analysis ## REFERENCES ## APPENDICES ## A. Title of Appendix ## B. Title of Appendix ## C. Title of Appendix ## CHAPTER ONE: THE PROBLEM Problem Background The colleges and universities of the United States are among the best educational institutions in the world (U.S. News & World Report, 2012). Numerous methods have been developed to gauge the performance of these schools (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 2010; The Center for Measuring University Performance, 2010; U.S. News & World Report, 2012). Literature to describe and determine the standards and benchmarks of education and research has been published for decades (Goldin, 2003; Haskins, 1957; Tocqueville, 1945). The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching classification system has provided the leading methodology for describing institutional diversity in U.S. higher education. The Carnegie Foundation classification system for categorizing colleges and universities has been to support its programs of research and policy analysis. Derived from empirical data on colleges and universities, the Foundation’s classification system reflects differences between the various colleges and universities. The U.S. colleges and universities use this classification to identify the differences and similarities among each institution. This classification system has been widely used in the study of higher education, both as a way to represent and control for institutional differences, and in the design of research studies to ensure adequate representation of sampled institutions, students, and faculty. The foundation categorizes higher institutions framework and to allow comparison in undergraduate enrollment and size and setting classification. These classifications provide different lenses through which to view United States colleges and universities, offering researchers greater analytic flexibility (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 2010). The Carnegie Foundation’s principal users are: 1. Research community 2. Academic researchers and institutional research staff regional accrediting bodies, 3. U.S. Department of Education and Regional accrediting bodies, 4. American Association of University Professors 5. Education analysts By providing a set of distinct classifications as well as a set of online tools for creating custom listings, combining categories within classifications, identifying institutions in similar categories, or filtering listings by selected criteria, this study will achieve much greater analytic flexibility, allowing the researcher her to match classification tools to the study analytic needs (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 2010). The Center for Measuring University Performance is a research enterprise focused on the economical and nationwide context of research universities. The organizational direction depends a great deal upon the resourcefulness and objectives of its review board, which is built on the insights and recommendations of numerous collaborators throughout the United States that provide statistical information, and opinion(Carey, 2006). The Center, which is associated with Arizona State University, is known for their annual report. The Center for Measuring University Performance is also known for their scholarly works on ranking and education quality, and makes their data available to the public via the web (Carey, 2006).The Center for Measuring University Performance ranks the best universities on nine different measures to accomplish their result. Some of the measures include: 1. Undergraduate access 2. Affordability 3. Success through research 4. The university's budget and finances The Center for Measuring University Performance annual report reflects American best universities, offers analysis and data useful for understanding American university performance. A key feature of the Center for Measuring University Performance annual report is the classification of universities into groups based upon their nine quality indicators. The centers collected data from more than 600 institutions. Researchers, institutions, boards of trustees, and government organizations use the report’s rankings to assess the performance of higher education institutions. This study will utilize data that is published by the Center for Measuring University Performance. The Center for Measuring University Performance for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University and John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University have used The Center for Measuring University Performance annual report to planning, decision making, modifying programs, setting performance targets, recognizing good performance, comparing performance, informing stakeholders, performance growth and promoting accountability (Behn, 2003). U.S. News & World Report published the America’s Best Colleges report. This report is the most widely citation of their kind in the nation (U.S. News & World Report, 2012). These rankings are based upon data, which U.S. News & World Report collects from educational institutions, from annual surveys, and from the institution’s websites. U.S. News & World Report provides an excellent starting point for the college search. The rankings allow one to compare the quality of institutions based on widely accepted indicators of excellence as student’s retention and graduation rates and the strength of the institution faculty. Knowing the data on colleges before attending, students discover unfamiliar schools with similar metrics, and broaden their possibilities (U.S. News & World Report, 2012). Satisfactions of graduates are far more powerful than faculty pay grades. The importance of these rankings with U.S. News and World Report will help to shape the integrity of this study. Some of the metrics that U.S. News & World Report uses include: 1. Percent of graduates employed 2. Pay rate of graduates 3. Satisfaction of graduates U.S. News & World Report metrics has significant value because it allows researchers to measure the intangibles of colleges that cannot measure through statistical data. In addition, the reputation of an institution can help get a graduate that all important first job and plays a significant part in the choice of institution students will be able to attend. The data is by characteristics subjective, but the method of asking industry leaders to rate their competitors is a commonly accepted practice. The Council for Higher Education (CHEA) set standards and processes for higher education institutions. The Scope of these accrediting organizations are consistent with the academic quality, improvement and accountability expectations that The Council for Higher Education has established, including the standards that the majority of institutions or programs have for each undergraduate degrees granted. The accrediting associations that fall under The Council of Higher Education are: 1. Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools 2. Western Association of Schools and Colleges 3. Southern Association of Colleges Schools 4. North Central Association of Colleges and 5. New England Association of Schools and Colleges and Schools These are regional accrediting organizations that are accountable for the standards of higher education institution (The Council for Higher Education Accreditation, 2012). The roles of these accrediting bodies are responsible for determining educational quality. The accrediting bodies can use the results of this study to help improve service quality in higher education institutions. The U.S. Department of Education establishes policy for, administers, and coordinates assistance to education. The Department oversees research on most aspects of education; collects data on trends; and gathers information to help identify best practices in education, such as teaching techniques that work and makes recommendations for education improvement. There research findings and statistics are disseminated to educators, policymakers, parents, researchers and the general public in the form of reports and printed publications and an online format . The U.S. Department of Education can use the results from this study to help to improve efficiency of higher education institutions activities, especially with regards to their processes, procedures, and organizational structures and increase the accountability of higher education institutions (The Council for Higher Education Accreditation, 2012). During times of economic growth, jobs have been available over a wide range of industries and college graduates have been assimilated into the ever-expanding American workforce (Brooks, 2012). During and in the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2008, however, joblessness has become threatening because of an excess of low-skilled, minimally educated, non-technically-prepared workers (Deparle, 2012b). At the same time, redundancies have occurred where employees do overlapping work in the manufacturing and service-oriented industries. Consequently, both private and public sector organizations have had to dismiss workers by the tens-of-thousands (Deparle, 2012a). As of June 2012, there are about than 23 million unemployed or underemployed Americans (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012). American educational institutions have not been made accountable for their inability to project the needs of the job market realistically (Kavilanz, 2012). Higher education institutions have been mostly reactive to the economy, encouraging and creating educational programs, such as nursing, information technology, and business. In contrast, enrollment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics have continued to decline, perhaps because students are not adequately prepared for these fields of study and also because of the perceived difficulty of these disciplines relative to less demanding subjects (CNNMoney, 2012). Most importantly, as colleges and universities in the United States have awarded hundreds-of-thousands of degrees, institutions must held accountable when their graduates are unable to find jobs commensurate with their educational attainment (Cummings, 2012; Gold & Albert, 2006; Maryland Higher Education Commission, 2011; Salmi, 2009). Cases have been reported wherein graduates from prestigious schools were unemployed because of the unavailability of jobs in their field of study (Cooper & Kopick, 2011; Hu, 2010). Graduates are also underutilized or underemployed (Idaho Department of Labor, 2012; Mendes, 2011; North Dakota State Government, 2012). Thus, a need exists for American colleges and universities to assume responsibility for preparing their graduates for viable careers. This is the reason why the US Department of Education had implemented a law call the gainful employment act that will hold higher education institutions for some of their actions. Presently, 3,800 colleges and universities comprise the higher education system in the United States (Northwood University, 2012). The majority of these institutions are teaching-oriented; fewer than one thousand allocate their resources towards research and development (Capaldi, Lombardi, Abbey, & Craig, 2010; University of Washington, 2001). Purpose of the Study The purpose of this study is to find out the employment suitability of undergraduate degrees offered by higher education institutions in the United States, with the objective being to find out if the undergraduate courses that students study in these institutions have chances of acquiring employment opportunities for the students. This study will examine three core variables considered when exploring employment outcomes, which are job satisfaction, the time it takes for a graduate to get a first job, and the suitability of their undergraduate studies to their jobs. The lack of employment suitability leads to difficulty is accessing jobs as well as frustrations. Perhaps no other industry in the world is more susceptible to this than higher education. The outcomes from this research could benefit leadership practitioners by offering concepts that could be useful for enhancing the present methodologies to employment suitability practices in higher education. Research Questions and/or Hypotheses Research Questions These research questions will provide a foundation for the framework of the research: 1. What organizational and/or educational leadership standards and benchmarks can be used to determine the quality of education provided by these colleges and universities? 2. How suitable are the undergraduate studies that students study in these institutions to their future employment? Hypotheses These Hypotheses will provide a foundation for the framework of the research: H0. Higher job satisfaction would reflect a highly favorable employment outcome. H1. Shorter period to get a job would also reflect highly favorable employment, while higher suitability would reflect highly favorable employment outcome, and vice versa Limitations Limitations of this study include: 1. This study will not include all 3,800 colleges and universities in the United States. 2. This study will not include college graduates with Master’s and doctoral degrees. 3. The study will only survey graduates that have held their undergraduate degrees for at least one year and no more than five years. 4. Additional limitations will be added during the development of Chapters 2 and 3. Delimitations Delimitations of this study include: 1. The graduates who will be surveyed will not represent graduates that have held their degrees for more than five years. 2. The study will not survey graduates who live outside of the United States of America. 3. College graduates who have been seeking employment for a period of less than one year will not be included in this study. Additional delimitations will be added during the development of Chapter 3 Definition of Terms For the purpose of this study, the following definitions will be used: Colleges or universities are defined, for the purposes of this study, as higher education institutions that offer undergraduate degrees. Graduate is defined as a person who has obtained a bachelor’s degree from a college or university. Accountability is defined as higher education institutions should account for their actions. Quality of education is defined as the recognition received by the selected college/university as a result of the ranking assigned in the Best Colleges 2012 by the U.S. News & World Report (2012). Importance of the Study The study will be very important to the higher education institutions, faculties, graduates, and researchers. The reason why the study will be important is because employment suitability of undergraduate Degrees in the higher education system is not present. Colleges and universities, as the sources of the highest concentration of information, education, and research in the world, must be able to provide undergraduate courses that give the students who study them employment opportunities (Bayana, 2009, p. 252). 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