RESUMO
The devastating effects of the Novel Coronavirus and the impact that stay-at-home orders and mask mandates have placed on businesses have caused countries to plummet into economic recession. State quarantine measures and the fear of contracting the virus have led to structural change, resulting in more people enlisting on welfare rolls. The significance of this issue is the continual problem of helping individuals on welfare secure and maintain long-term employment. The purpose of this study was to understand clearly where the problem lies that contributes to the inability of large volumes of welfare recipients to maintain long-term employment. This study provided insight into why substantial amounts of recipients are inhibited in securing long-term employment after completing welfare educational programs. The major contribution of this work is filling the gaps in the literature by illuminating new revelations to understand why individuals completing welfare programs are unsuccessful in maintaining long-term employment. Utilizing a narrative inquiry research design of six participants from two northern New Jersey career technical schools, the researcher examined four welfare vendor instructors and two educational administrators on their varied experiences and classroom methodologies. From the rich text data given by each instructor, the researcher was able to gain insights from the coded responses of each respondent. The researcher utilized artifacts (i.e., syllabi, job requirements, lesson plans, record of training, and the student handbook) to identify trends in institutional practices. Finally, a thematic analysis of all coded data yielded three overarching themes: (1) pedagogy and limited teaching strategies;(2) efficacy of soft skills readiness, which was broken down further into the sub-themes of (a) andragogical instructional deployment, and (b) soft skills: conversations versus course within the curriculum;and (3) instructor readiness and the drawbacks of accelerated learning. The researcher observed snapshots of classroom methodological patterns of instruction that may have contributed to welfare recipients' inability to maintain long-term employment. Holistically, this study examined the effectiveness of welfare educational vendor programs and classroom methodologies that impact long-term employment outcomes. The concluding chapter provides recommendations for improvements to help welfare recipients obtain long-term employment. This study provided opportunities to mitigate existing conditions that hinder individuals from maintaining long-term employability. In addition, the saliency of this study contributes to improving classroom instructional methodologies that can help individuals maintain long-term employment outcomes, particularly by giving students the ability to obtain self-sufficiency in supporting their families within distressed communities in northern New Jersey. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)