Research Journal of Educational Studies and Review

Research Paper|Published July 2020|Vol. 6 (3): 43-49. https://doi.org/10.36630/rjesr_20006

 

Assessing the Job Roles of School-to-Work Transition Coordinators for College Students with Disabilities in Japan

 

Yukiko Goto^1* and Jun Yaeda²

 

 

¹Faculty of Industrial Technology, Tsukuba University of Technology, Japan.
²Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Japan.

ABSTRACT

The lack of communication between transition coordinators and vocational rehabilitation (VR) staff is preventing the effective transition for students with disabilities (SWDs). The purpose of this study was to assess the job roles of school-to-work transition coordinators at colleges and universities in Japan, using the Transition from School to Work for College Students with Disabilities (TSW-College) developed by the present authors. The sample consisted of 100 transition coordinators at 100 Japanese colleges and universities. Exploratory factor analysis found that the transition roles could be broken into three categories, namely; Needs-based Collaborative Interagency support (NCI), Job Matching support with companies (JM), and Individualized Job Seeking support (IJS). The overall Cronbach’s alpha was 0.97, indicating the TSW-College was internally consistent and could be used to examine the roles of transition coordinators at colleges and universities. The TSW-College could be used as an assessment tool to identify the gap between the perceived roles and expected roles between the college personnel who provide school-to-work transition for their SWDs and the VR staff who expect those college personnel to provide transition support for their clients. Discussions included some strategies to achieve the best practice for a smooth transition from school to work for college SWDs.

Key Words: University, Employment, School to work transition, Students with disabilities, Transition coordinators, Job roles and Vocational rehabilitation.

 

Download PDF(250)