Factors Influencing Teachers’ Perceptions of Success in Career and Technical Education Programs
By: Lavyne Rada and Joe Ramstad
Abstract
With the varying interests and focuses shared throughout all of career and technical education (CTE) and the intricacies and traditions each CTE area offers, taking a holistic view and looking at what success looks like in CTE as a whole is a warranted discussion. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how CTE teachers define success within CTE programs. To fulfill our research goals, we utilized a content analysis of 28 CTE teachers’ own definitions of what a successful CTE program consists of, along with an analysis of ideas shared during their engagement in focus group sessions. Inductive data analysis revealed teachers’ ability to satisfy labor and workforce needs, foster skill development, and facilitate experiential learning being common indicators of a successful CTE program; these definitions are shaped based on the training and lived experiences of alternatively-certified and traditionally-certified teachers who participated in the study. Further, teachers acknowledged expectations placed upon them by both administrators and community stakeholders influence their perceptions of success in their CTE programs. Teachers felt these expectations were complex in that they could be both helpful to growing the program through helping secure additional visibility and partnerships for those stakeholders interested in helping the program grow, but also burdensome or challenging due to lack of understanding or necessary funding to meet their expectations. Future research should be conducted in this area through asking community stakeholders and administrators how they define success in CTE programs, and seeing how these perspectives differ from teachers.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21061/jcte.524 | Journal eISSN: 1533-1830
Language: English
Published on: May 18, 2026
Published by: Virginia Tech Publishing
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
© 2026 Lavyne Rada, Joe Ramstad, published by Virginia Tech Publishing
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.