Publication Date

1970

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Crank, Floyd L.||Maxwell, Lyle

Degree Name

M.S. Ed. (Master of Education)

Legacy Department

Department of Business Education

LCSH

Business education--Illinois; Occupations--Illinois

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to survey office occupations in the LaSalle-Peru-Oglesby-Spring Valley (LPOS) area to determine job opportunities and requirements to serve as a means of evaluating the business education curriculum of Hall High School, Spring Valley, Illinois. The major objectives of the study were: (1) to determine the office opportunities in the employment area and the requirements for these jobs, and (2) to seek occupational information of value to the Business Education Department, the administration, and the students of Hall High School, and to businesses in the LPOS area. A list of all manufacturing companies in the LPOS area furnished by the LPOS Chamber of Commerce and a search of the yellow pages of the LaSalle-Peru-Oglesby and Spring Valley Telephone Directories for additional businesses made up the total population for the survey. A letter of introduction and questionnaire were sent to each of the business firms, a total of, sixty-six. Three weeks later, a follow up postal card was sent to those firms which had not responded to the original mailing. The data secured from responses to these two mailings were tabulated, classified, and reported in the descriptive areas and tables found in this study. The significant findings and conclusions of this study were as follows: (1) most of the high school graduates in the area will be working in the clerical, typist, and stenographic areas; (2) approximately half of the employers gave some kind of employment tests, usually typewriting, arithmetic, and clerical tests; (3) the average minimum speed required in typewriting was 50 words per minute and in shorthand 80 words per minute; (4) failure on the job was most often caused by lack of skill, lack of interest, or personality faults; (5) general deficiencies found most often in office employees were failure to use common sense, failure to "do little extras," lack of initiative, and wasting of time; (6) failure to check work for accuracy was the most common skill deficiency; (7) one-half of the employers did not favor a cooperative office program; (8) eighty percent of the employers believed high schools are doing an adequate job of preparing students for office positions; (9) of the employers, 62.5 percent thought that better working relations between the high schools and business are needed.

Comments

Includes bibliographical references.

Extent

viii, 58 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

Download

Share

COinS