Initial and Follow-up Project Meetings
CCDF met with the WLKC Coordinator to discuss the project, its objectives and the research parameters (e.g. the breadth of the school-to-work transition programs, practices and policies to be examined).
Since WLKC was conducting three similar synthesis projects simultaneously and there was the possibility of overlap between the projects, meetings were held by phone with the consultant groups (CCDF and Schroeder and Schroeder Inc.) concerning the data capture template and survey process. These meetings were held with the intent of increasing the consistency of the projects’ results.
The consultant groups worked to consolidate the data fields into a Data Capture Template (Appendix A) which would be used for each of the WLKC synthesis projects. It was acknowledged that some of the data fields would not necessarily fit for each project and that in some cases entries in the inventory might not have information to fill in each data field.
CCDF, the WLKC co-ordinator and the project leader for the other synthesis projects, consulted on the descriptive elements for the data template and discussed co-ordination of survey distribution to minimize effort of the working groups. The Data Capture template resulting from these discussions contains 24 data fields. WLKC’s co-ordinator reviewed and approved the Data Capture template in early May, 2007.
Given the number of data fields, CCDF designed a shorter preliminary data-gathering survey to capture key descriptive elements of school-to-work offerings from members of the WLKC Transition and Access Working Groups. The WLKC Transitions and Access Working Group members are representatives from government (Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, Alberta Employment, Immigration and Industry), education (e.g. Athabasca University, Canadian Teachers’ Federation), non-profit (The Learning Partnership, National Adult Literacy Database, PLA Centre), business (e.g. The Conference Board of Canada) and industry (e.g. The Alliance of Sector Councils, The Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters) organizations. Members on the working groups have a focus on or an interest in transitional issues of youth and adults. While the Working Groups were the primary informants for the inventory, it was recognized that they would likely not know all the required information about each individual practice, policy and program that they suggested for review. Therefore, the survey was created to capture key data that would support research in the literature review.
The survey (Appendix B) was distributed electronically to all members of the WLKC Transition and Access Working Groups with a letter of introduction and invitation to participate (Appendix C). Email reminders were sent out on three occasions prior to the deadline date. Nonresponding recipients of the surveys were contacted by phone as a follow-up to encourage participation by email or by phone.