Method of Review

Empirical research data for this study were identified and selected for inclusion through use of a two-stage process.

• In Stage 1, search-term descriptors were generated for the purpose of obtaining papers and documents relevant to the topic of transition from school-to-adult life (e.g., work, postsecondary school,etc.). To obtain potentially relevant articles and papers, the staff did educational data bank computer searches and screened already available documents for references and citations. Keywords for this search included , among others, such descriptors as transition, best practices, success, employment, empirical, disabilities, education, vocational rehabilitation, school-to-work, and transitional programs. Through this process, a list of references and citations for documents were generated. Attempts to obtain copies of the relevant papers were inaugurated by searching for the journals and copying articles when available, obtaining microfiche and printing copies, making requests through the University of Illinois Interlibrary loan office, or contacting authors with a request for the document of interest. We also searched the worldwide web for leads. Finally, many of the bibliographies associated with acquired papers, in turn, also generated additional leads for relevant documents. Through Stage 1 of the search process, we identified 106 candidate documents.

• In Stage 2, we conducted a more careful and rigorous screening of the candidate documents. We selected documents for inclusion in the review if they met the following criteria:
• The first criterion was that the study focused on or included students with special needs, students with disabilities, or students who were at-risk in some other manner.
• The second criterion included the requirement that the documents were of topics related to transition practices. For example, relevant topics of practices might include papers on school-to-work, technical education programs, vocational education, career plan development, transition planning strategies, support services, teachers’ perspectives, business apprenticeships, job shadowing, etc. We also considered papers on staff development (e.g., in-service training, background training, business apprenticeships, shadowing) or papers that considered how transition practices were incorporated into already existing programs.
• The final criterion was that the documents were research-oriented. That is, we chose to limit our search to documents in which researchers defined dependent and independent variables, clearly indicated the outcomes of an intervention of some type, and provided some type of commentary on the implications of the findings for future practice.

Documents that did not meet all three criteria were excluded from further consideration. This process resulted in 20 studies judged adequate for further review. The documents represented a variety of methodologies: survey (4), program evaluation (5), experimental (1), quasi-experimental (5), cost-benefit analysis (1), follow-up (1), statistical analysis (1), interview (1), and observational descriptive (1).