Perceptions of career and technical education held by Indiana's public school counselors

Often the roles of Indiana counselors are not in alignment with counselor standards set at the state and national levels, resulting in time taken away from providing career counseling to students and parents, specifically as the counseling relates to CTE related options. One purpose of this study was to better understand relationships and differences related to Indiana’s middle and high school counselors’ knowledge levels, self-assessed knowledge levels, educational backgrounds, available counseling time, and common variables with their perceptions of CTE initiatives and programs in Indiana. An online survey collected data from public school counselors throughout the state of Indiana. The data collected and analyzed in this study did not reveal many statistically significant results. However, counselors’ self-assessed knowledge levels and their perceptions of CTE indicated a statistically significant difference, as counselors’ perceived knowledge level went up, so did counselors’ perceptions of CTE. Based on descriptive statistics of the study, Indiana counselors lack background experiences in CTE, and are faced with low amounts of face-to-face time with students and large high caseloads. These issues could influence their ability to provide CTE guidance. A suggestion for future research is to understand how counselors are prepared to understand CTE in their initial training, as well as how parents and other stakeholders in the lives of children perceive CTE.