JVER v28n3 - Editor's Note

Editor's Note

Joe W. Kotrlik
Louisiana State University

As I prepare this issue for publication, I am also preparing for the Journal of Vocational Education Research (JVER) Editorial Board meeting and the American Vocational Education Research Association (AVERA) meetings in Orlando, Florida. This year will be different because two of AVERA's research paper sessions will be held jointly with Omicron Tau Theta (OTT). This collaboration between AVERA and OTT is a positive development in our field.

I want to thank the many reviewers who served JVER this year by providing high quality and prompt manuscript reviews. A list of these reviewers is included in this issue. Their professionalism and support has enabled me to handle manuscript reviews in a timely manner. In most cases, authors have been notified of the publication decision on their manuscripts in two months or less.

In this issue, Brauchle and Azam report their investigation of supervisor and employee perceptions of work attitudes in information age manufacturing industries. Significant differences existed between self-perceived work attitudes of information and non-information employees and their supervisors, and indicated that the selfperceived work attitudes of information and non-information employees were different. The analyses also revealed that female information employees possessed better work attitudes than their male counterparts.

Ncube and Greenan studied the pathways of entrepreneurial career development and the processes involved for women to become entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe. They found that women's agency or the ability to carry out initiatives was critical to overcoming social and economic subjugation in the colonial and postcolonial states. Entrepreneurial outcomes included gain in capital and power as well as construction and acquisition of skills. In addition, women entrepreneurs became increasingly visible as they developed more power within society, and technology played an important role in the development of enterprises.

Hernández and Brendefur analyzed the collaborative process of mathematics and vocational-technical education instructors as they developed an authentic, integrated mathematics curriculum unit. They found it is possible for interdisciplinary teams of teachers to create high quality integrated mathematics curriculum units if certain conditions are met. Having support from the school's community, meeting regularly with all the team members, focusing conversations toward student understanding, writing tasks that promote conceptual and integrated understanding of the concepts, and writing the unit together with reflective thought, all seemed to be critical elements in successful integrated unit writing.

Ruhland and Bremer describe traditionally and alternatively certified secondary career and technical education teachers' perceptions of their first year teaching experience. On a national level, there is an increase in the number of states providing alternative certification as an option to enter the teaching profession. Critics have argued that alternatively certified teachers are inferior to traditionally certified teachers. Results from this study reported secondary CTE teachers who completed a traditional certification program had better pre-service preparation in pedagogy while alternatively certified teachers felt more prepared in knowledge of subject matter. Considering the many changes taking place in teacher education and the staffing of secondary schools, this study has addressed one of the current major issues in the preparation of career and technical education teachers.

These articles make a significant contribution to our research mission in vocational, career and technical education. These studies make a substantial contribution to our body of knowledge in vocational, career and technical education, and provide a solid foundation for further research.

jwk