An Obstacle of Guiding Students to Apprenticeship Training Center: Negative Parent Opinions

One of the most important duty of psychological counselors is to help students and especially families to change their negative opinions and biases against apprenticeship training centers and to help students in their occupational choices. Contact meetings for families are very important. Because this guiding process of students is determined by their parents and social environment. The role of families is very important about the students’ plans and choices for their future. Both career development theories (Holland, 1985; Ginzberg, 1972; Roe, 1957; Super, 1990) and researches (Eccles, Barber, ve Jozefowicz, 1998; Fitzgerald ve Betz, 1983; Mortimer, Lorence ve Kumka, 1986; Penick ve Jepsen, 1992) underline the effects of families in variety of ways on the students’ occupational choices. Because families think that especially the apprenticeship training centers provide the students second class occupations it reveals a negative effect on the students (Hypatia Project, 2002). Families also want their children to go on a university instead of apprenticeship training centers. They consider the apprenticeship training as failure and inability (Ginzberg, 1972; MacCulloch ve Henley, 2002). Researchers attained some results that parents and students didn’t have enough information about the students’ career who were attending an apprenticeship training center (Ball ve Freeland, 2001; Sweet ve Gallagher, 1997; Viswanathan, 2002). For this reason, new studies are needed for revising parents’ misbelieves and attitudes towards apprenticeship training because they play an effective role in career development of children. In this study, it was investigated that why the parents don’t send their children to the apprenticeship training centers and whether these reasons show any difference in terms of parents’ and students’ genders or not. It is believed that findings obtained from this study may help to determine negative parents’ opinions which play an important role for guiding 8th grade students at elementary schools to apprenticeship training centers. Participants 263 parents (102 Female (%38.8) 161 Male (% 61.2)) participated in this research. Every participants have 8th grade elementary students who were educated in 2009-2010 educational year fall semester in Konya city Zeliha and Lutfi Kulluk Elementary School. Instruments Personal Information Form: A Personal Information Form was used which was developed by researchers to determine the participants’ genders and opinions about apprenticeship training centers. In this form, on the purpose of determining the participants’ opinions, they were asked a close-ended question like “Would you like to send your students to an apprenticeship training center after elementary school?” and were asked for parents’ and their students’ genders. Evaluation Survey for Apprenticeship Training: To determine the reasons of negative opinions of the parents who do not want to send their students to any apprenticeship training center, a 23 itemed evaluation Survey for Apprenticeship Training was used. To evaluate the items, a rating scale with four options (1=Unimportant,2=Slightly Important,3=Important ,4=Very Important) was used. Procedure Firstly, Personal Information Form handed to 263 parents who have 8th grade students at elementary schools to determine their negative opinions against Apprenticeship Training Centers. The item, “Would you like to send your students to an apprenticeship training center after elementary school?” on the Personal Information Form was answered as “Yes” (% 28,5) by 75 participants and was answered as “No” (% 71,5) by 188 participants. In the following process, these 188 participants who said “No” were tested the Evaluation Survey for Apprenticeship Training Data Analysis Some descriptive analysis like “frequency and percent” were made on data’s which were collected from this research. To determine the differentiation about negative opinions toward Apprenticeship Training Centers according to the genders of parents and students, chi-square test analysis was made. Findings It appeared that the item “The students have to remain standing until evening at Apprenticeship Training Centers” was accepted as important and very important by % 72,9 percent of the participant. The item “Occupations need handcraft at Apprenticeship Training Centers” was accepted as important and very important by %70,2 percent of them. The item “The diploma of Apprenticeship Training is not equal to the diploma of General Secondary Schools” was accepted as important and very important by %68,6 percent of them. The item “Childhood and Youth cannot be lived at Apprenticeship Training” was accepted as important and very important by %68,1 percent of them. The item “Girls do not attend to Apprenticeship Training” was accepted as important and very important by %67,6 percent of them. The item “It is possible to get an occupational diseases” was accepted as important and very important by % 65,9 percent of them. Findings according to the parents’ genders, the items “The occupations which will be obtained after Apprenticeship Training will not be respected” , “It will be paid little”, “The diploma of Apprenticeship Training is not equal to the diploma of General Secondary Schools” and “There is no generalist(well-educated) person” were accepted as more important reasons by male parents than female parents were. When the findings were investigated for the other reasons, any differences didn’t appear in terms of genders. Findings according to the students’ gender, the items “Working obligation at early ages”, “The students have to always do the same things at Apprenticeship Training”, “The students have to wear old and dirty clothes Apprenticeship Training”, and “The students are behaved badly” were accepted as more important reasons male parents than female parents were. And also parents with daughters accepted the items “Apprenticeship Training is painful and requires to long time working”, “occupations gained from Apprenticeship Training don’t open to development” and “Girls do not attend to Apprenticeship Training” more important than parents with sons did. Discussion In Turkey, the majority of 8th grade students after completing elementary school need helps and information getting the most suitable occupations which require different aims, skills and personal features. After primary education, Apprenticeship Training Centers set a good alternative for students who are obliged to drop out of school or prefer working life to remaining school. But when it comes to registered students to Apprenticeship Training Centers, it is seen that available numbers of students fall behind the numbers of students who have to attend to these centers according to the apprentice law. One of the main reasons of this situation, negative parents opinions against Apprenticeship Training Centers come into prominence in decision making process of elementary school students. In this research, it was investigated the reasons why 8th grade elementary students’ parents do not want to send their children to the Apprenticeship Training Centers and the findings revealed that they have a negative opinion against the Apprenticeship Training Centers.