Career and Technical Education Concentrators and High School Graduation Rates in the State of Missouri

The purpose of this quantitative causal comparative study was to investigate the difference in four-year high school graduation rates of career and technical education concentrators and non-career and technical education concentrators in the state of Missouri. The study further explores the following five demographic sub-variables of CTE concentrators and non-CTE concentrators four-year high school graduation rates: male students, female students, Black students, Hispanic students, and students with disabilities. For this study the researcher utilized publicly available archival data from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's website. Descriptive statistics were used to indicate the general tendencies of the data between the graduation rates of CTE and non-CTE concentrators and by the differences of demographic sub-variables of students in this study. Inferential statistics were used to make inferences about the null hypothesis and 5 null sub-hypotheses outlined for this study. Inferential statistics were calculated by using independent samples t-tests to compare the mean of the difference in graduation rates between CTE and non-CTE concentrators. The results indicate CTE concentrators four-year graduation rates, expressed as a percentage, were higher for all variables versus the graduation rates of non-CTE concentrators. The results of the independent samples t-tests revealed a statistically significant difference between all variables using a .05 level of significance, therefore the null hypothesis and 5 null sub-hypotheses were rejected.