A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of the Career Education Program for Students with Disabilities

Abstract

This study was to analyze the effects of the career education program for students with disabilities. The analysis was performed based on two research questions. First, the total effect size on the career program for students with disabilities was considered. Second, the difference of the effect size between the sub-groups regarding dependency variables, types of disabilities, types of schools, number of people, and number of sessions was also included for analysis. For this, the author reviewed a database and analyzed 12 previous studies, presented in five master thesis and seven Korean journals from 2005 to 2015 based on the author’s selection criteria. Subsequently, 27 effect size was found. The publication bias was analyzed by Rosenthal’s fail-safe N. The overall effect size for all studies on the random effect model was 1.717, which was positive and high in value. Given the heterogeneity among the effect size, the subgroup analysis was conducted, and indicated that the effect size was significantly high when the purpose of the program was related to the student’s self-decision ability. The results demonstrated that the programs were specified for students with intellectual disabilities, when the schools were elementary, when the number of students in a group was 1-10, and when program sessions lasted more than 21 times, the effect size was high. Implication for the future research and program implication were discussed on these findings. Keywords: career education program, meta-analysis, effect size, program effectiveness