Organizational Design of Secondary Aviation / Aerospace / Engineering Career Education Programs

Abstract

The goal of this study was to identify and evaluate the underlying organizational factors of successful secondary aviation/aerospace/engineering career education programs, through application of measures traditionally associated with organizational theory. Analysis methods included factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and a review of study participants’ comments to identify emerging themes for triangulation with the statistical analysis results. Participants in the study comprised aviation/aerospace/engineering career education stakeholders. Hypothesis testing results suggested that the most important factor in predicting success for an aviation/aerospace/engineering program is personal motivation related to learning. Though other underlying factors, including leadership/collaborative environment, organizational accountability, and resource availability were clearly related to perceived program success, these relationships appeared to be indirect. The paired qualitative analysis of participant comments generated themes that transcended survey item topics. Personal motivation was the most commonly recurring theme in comments, supporting the hypothesis testing result indicating its predictive strength for an organization’s success.