CareerStart: A Middle School Student Engagement and Academic Achievement Program

Improving Middle School Student Engagement Through Career-Relevant Instruction in the Core Curriculum

“…Longitudinal research has indicated that many students deemed as being 28 The Journal of Educational Research vulnerable to leaving school early were already disengaged from their education before high school; thus, these students begin dropping out before innovative high school programs have an opportunity to make a difference (Orthner, Cook, Rose, & Randolph, 2002). Research on school engagement during the middle school years (i.e., beginning of Grade 6 to the end of Grade 8) has consistently found that students' behavioral and psychosocial engagement declined precipitously over this period (Orthner et al, 2010;Woolley & Bowen, 2007). This pattern of decline suggests that a high proportion of students arrive in high school with diminished expectations for what their education can provide.…”

“…Even though middle school students are not typically ready to commit to career choices, these students experience the careers of their parents or community and are expected to make choices in their middle and high school curricula that can impact future career and educational opportunities (Akos, Lambie, Milsom, & Gilbert, 2007;Akos, Shoffner, & Ellis, 2007). Research by Orthner et al (2010) reported that 80% of the sampled students entering Grade 6 "think about where I will work when I'm grown up" (p. 228), indicating a readiness for career exploration.…”

The Validity of the Achievement-Orientation Model for Gifted Middle School Students

“…Middle school academic performance and engagement are believed to predict whether or not a student will drop out of high school (Orthner et al, 2010). According to Eccles (2008), "For a substantial number of America's youth, early adolescence marks the beginning of a downward spiral that eventuates in academic failure [and] school dropout" (p. 1).…”

Advancing Academic Achievement Through Career Relevance in the Middle Grades

“…This seems especially true for students from at-risk groups. CareerStart is an instructional intervention developed to fit that need (Orthner et al, 2010). CareerStart promotes student engagement and academic success in the middle grades by advancing the relevance of instructional content through the use of occupational examples infused into the standard curriculum across the four core subjects in the middle grades-mathematics, science, social studies, and language arts.…”