A Comparison of Training Options for Machine-Tool Workers

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In spite of the focus on information and service industries as the source of economic growth in the US, the machining and tooling industries are still vitally important to the economic well-being of the nation. This industry is in somewhat of a crisis due to a shortage of trained workers. This award to the University of Illinois will support the research of a cultural anthropologist to assess and compare five educational programs in machine-tool technology in western Pennsylvania. Two of the programs are innovative flexible attempts to train students, and three are traditional public and apprenticeship programs. The project will interview students, parents, teachers, counselors and machine-tool company managers on their definitions of relevant skills and the personal values which underlie their opinions. Using traditional ethnographic methods, field experiments and experience sampling the project will assess the strengths and weaknesses of the most prevalent forms of training for machine-tooling employment. This research is important because the current societal interest in apprenticeship and vocational training as an alternative to purely academic programs assumes that we know how to train people for skilled blue-collar jobs. This sort of basic research on the nature of values people have which underlie their performance in diverse educational and vocational training experiences, will be valuable to planners in assessing how to improve the strength of this fundamental part of our economy.