Career Exploration for Special Education Students -- Results

At the beginning of the project the students filled out a questionnaire regarding their feelings towards using a computer. All the respondents stated that they used a computer before in school. Only 25% felt very comfortable with using a computer, while 38% felt somewhat comfortable and the same percentage of students stated that they did not feel very comfortable at all with using one. Also, on the survey, the students were asked how important they thought computers would be in their future careers. Thirty-one percent stated very important and the same percentage said somewhat important. The remaining 38% felt that computers would not be very important. Furthermore, on the survey, the students were asked what would they like to learn on the computer. The majority stated computer games, followed by the Internet and word processing.

At the end of the project the students filled out a post questionnaire. Twenty percent stated that they were very comfortable with using a computer, while 60% stated they felt somewhat comfortable and the remaining 20% did not feel very comfortable. On the question regarding how important did they think computers would be in their future careers, the students responded about the same as the pre-survey. The students were asked if they would like additional experience in using the computer. Seventy percent responded yes, while only 30% responded no. All of the students stated that they gained knowledge of using the Internet and email. Eighty percent of the students stated that they felt the project was worthwhile. However, only 60% felt that they gained knowledge about different careers.

Sixteen students in grades 8-12 wrote to 32 people. Only 4 of the resource people did not respond. The students looked forward to receiving the email. They would ask the teacher several times a day if they had a response to their email yet.

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