A Study on the Career Development Patterns of Special Education Needs Students in the High School Stage

Abstract

 Abstract—This study used the Career Development Patterns Scale to investigate and analyze the career development patterns of 325 sophomores with special education needs in general high schools in Taiwan. For the data of the scale, this study used the SPSS18.0 version to perform descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA, percentage compliance and single sample t-test. The main findings are as follows: 1) the score of male students in realistic pattern and investigative pattern is higher than that of female students; the score of female students in artistic pattern and social pattern is higher than that of male students; most of the female students are in humanity pattern, and most of the male students are in the mathematics and physics pattern; 2) the score of students with severe/extremely severe disability in conventional pattern is higher than that of students with other levels of disability; 3) the choice of academic groups affects career development pattern; the score of students choosing the second group in investigative pattern is higher than that of those choosing the first group; the score of students choosing the second and third groups in mathematics and physics pattern is higher than that of those choosing the first group; 4) the percentage compliance between students choosing different groups and advantaged career development patterns is 65.24%, suggesting that approximately 35% of the students fail to choose adequate groups; the compliance rate of female students is higher than that of male students; the compliance rate of students with mild and medium disability is also higher; 5) there is a significant difference in five career development patterns between general students and those with physical and psychological disability; the score of female students with special education needs in social pattern and humanity pattern is higher than that of general students. In addition to proposing future research directions, this study also suggested high schools should provide career development strategies different from those from general high school student to special education needs students (SEN students), take into account the gender of level of disability and incorporate advanced career development patterns to assist SEN students to acquire more adequate career development.