Ph.

DTE 805: Theories, Problems, and Issues in Technology Education 1

Professor : Dr. Alfonso G. Pacquing
Student : Antonio P. Antonio, Summer 2006

The Economic Theory of Vocational Education

1. Education, not force, the reliance of democracy. Education not force, must be relied
upon to secure stability and progress in a democracy. This stability and progress are
partly dependent upon the production of wealth through the conservation of natural and
human resources. Vocational education as a special form of education in its relations to
the development of the material and human assets of a people.

2. Vocational educations and the democratic progress. First it conserves natural

resources; second it conserves human resources by promoting, disseminating and
transmitting skill, knowledge and the results of invention by conserving human effort.

3. The self-contained country. Wealth is created by making the most of natural

resources whether these are native to a country or imported. In such self contained
country the amount of skill and technical knowledge that might be used in creating
products would be limited only by possibilities of human invention and the extent to
which skill could be developed, and efficiently utilized.

4. No country is self-contained. No country is self-contained today. Development will

be faster if other resources of other country will be utilized.

5. Discovery and invention fundamental. Progress and stability depend upon the degree
to which wealth is produced. It stimulates the effort and offers the freedom of initiative,
which results in more fundamental discoveries by scientists and more ingenious devices
by inventors.

6. Developing machine and processes. The minimum expenditure of time, energy and
money, and with the largest corresponding amount of output. The need for developing
skill necessary to operate the new machine or control the new operations and processes.
Secure knowledge those who have learned how to do the new job an accurate inventory
of the technical knowledge required by the operator of the machine or the controller of
the new processes. If we fail to determine just what kind and degree of skill are necessary
to operate the new machine or carry on the new processes we fail the development of the
machine or processes to determine exactly the technical knowledge required.

7. The process dynamic, not static. As improvement have changed the construction and
design of the dynamo, the character of the skill required has also changed, and the
technical knowledge which the operator must posses has changed correspondingly and
this is called continual training process.

8. The corresponding flux in skill and knowledge. New skills are continually required
to meet the operating condition of new machines. New scientific discoveries involve the
acquisition of new technical knowledge. Old skills are continually being discarded; old
technical knowledge no longer serving its purpose must be replaced by new.

9. Adaptation and readaptation of the worker. Constant readaptation to the demands of

new jobs. The pick up method even for the ordinary workman, no longer meets the
Ph.DTE 805: Theories, Problems, and Issues in Technology Education 2
Professor : Dr. Alfonso G. Pacquing
Student : Antonio P. Antonio, Summer 2006

situation. This means for them the acquisition of new technical knowledge and new skills.
Consequently, new courses of training are being organized.

Professional schools are continually changing their subjects and their subject
matter in order to give their students the results of the latest experiments and research. In
the professional field the pick up method has been practically abolished, while it is still
remains the vocational training device for the great mass of worker. Standards are of such
a nature as to require organized training in order to reach them efficiently.

10. Pick up method kills old apprenticeship. Apprenticeship relied upon old time static
skill rather than upon training in new skills and new knowledge as needed. Lacking
organization for training purposes, it used the pick up method when the need for some
form of training was recognized.

The old apprenticeship failed utterly to meet the conditions of modern life where
the problem has become largely that of starting and spreading knowledge and skill
constantly arising from the progress of discovery and invention. This Imperative need for
the rapid diffusion of new skill is due to the following number of causes:

1. large number of person employed in every line

2. constantly growing body of information
3. modern means of rapid communications

11. Opening the way for non-com. Ordinary workers, the leaders and manager, these
men and women have the same need and the same right to organized assistance in their
upward struggle to leadership as do engineers and other technicians. The assistant
foremen and foremen constitute the non-commissioned officers in the production game
have almost completely neglected the training needs of most of the present and
prospective non-commissioned officers of the industry.

When the American technical high school no so common in our larger cities finds
its real field of service, it will not be as a preparatory school for the engineering college
but as a finishing school.

12. Opening the way for the inventor. No other country in the world has been so
prolific in discoveries and inventions for increasing production and reducing costs as the
United States. Varied labor saving, comfort making, and pleasure giving devices has
conceived and developed. Perhaps more than any other groups we need to conserve the
discovering scientist and the functioning inventor. Most of the successful inventions are
made not by technician but by mechanics with high degree of native intelligence, habit of
resourceful thinking and practical experience.

13. Vocational education and invention. There is no such thing as direct training for the
occupations of inventor only native aptitude and training through experience. Organized
Vocational education takes the place of the old pick up methods of the past. Every person
Ph.DTE 805: Theories, Problems, and Issues in Technology Education 3
Professor : Dr. Alfonso G. Pacquing
Student : Antonio P. Antonio, Summer 2006

having inventive tendencies and abilities will be exposed to an opportunity for getting
what he now so sadly needs and too often needs in vain.

Vocational Education and Human Resources

Vocational education conserves human resources a device for advancing morale

and intelligence.

14. Occupational intelligence. The ability to apply such experiences and acquired facts
as bear upon the solution of problems connected with the job in hand and requires human
intelligence. Job intelligence needs more ability for quick and resourceful thinking. The
increased quantity of material to be handled and the greater complexity of the machine to
be manipulated or controlled call for the exercise of intelligence on the part of the worker
as never before.

Discovery and invention are continually changing the demand on workers; new
skills are continually being created. This means not only the acquisition of new skills and
of new technical information, but also the acquisition of new kinds of job and
occupational intelligence. Vocational education of some kind is the only agency, which
can develop and transmit this job or occupational intelligence.

15. Occupational intelligence in the Richard’s formula. Efficiency on the job,

manipulative skill, technical knowledge and intelligence in making modifications in the
job according to special conditions that may come up. Different jobs and different
occupations, “M”, “T”, and “I” have very widely varying values both as a whole and with
regard to each other job judgment.

16. Occupational intelligence most important. What has been aimed at in vocational
education has been, without disregarding the “M”, and “T” to give also the special
thinking intelligence, “I” which functions in the given occupation. Master of any
occupation brings to bear all his knowledge to think his way through some difficulty that
must be overcome. Trouble shooter- a thinking skill that he has acquired and could only
acquire by long experience in applying facts about gas engines to real engines.

17. Occupational intelligence the chief aim. Both processes and functioning facts are so
taught that they give understanding to the worker and habits of resourceful thinking with
these facts in the processes, situations, and opportunities of his employment.

18. The answer of the psychologist. Facts are not education, and the mere acquisition of
facts does not constitute training. Training takes place only as the mind is taught to use
sound thinking procedures in dealing with facts.

There is no such thing as general training of the thinking machine to function with
equal power in all fields. Hence, job intelligence in one field does not necessarily produce
corresponding job ability in another vocational field.
Ph.DTE 805: Theories, Problems, and Issues in Technology Education 4
Professor : Dr. Alfonso G. Pacquing
Student : Antonio P. Antonio, Summer 2006

19. Subject matter and training in correct thinking. Inherent capacity to select,
functioning facts correctly weigh and evaluate them with regard to any given problem,
derive ideas as a result on which decisions are based in dealing with the problems.
Intrinsic intelligence comes to better decisions as it gets more and more practice. We find
in all fields different individual showing marked differences in the ability to select,
evaluate and weigh facts and experiences, even with equal and similar training. The value
of different kinds of subject matter for training an individual to make the most of his
native ability. One kind of subject matter thinking capacity is about as good as any other
for training the intrinsic intelligence of an individual. Any subject matter poorly taught
gave correspondingly poor results in the development of interest and intelligence
while any subject well taught produced correspondingly good results. Vocational
education is as effective as general education for promoting social efficiency; no less and
no more.

20. What vocational education contributes to social intelligence? (1) It can train the
intrinsic intelligence of a man to work effectively with facts in the vocational field in
which they are to be used. (2) There undoubtedly is some carry over from one field of
training to another called tendencies, practices, methods, habits etc. (3) The carry over of
ideals or standards of workmanship or performance.

21. Interest in subject matter essential to effective training. The same pupil always
showed marked differences in his ability to think in different subject matter or “teaching
stuff”, acquisition, selection and use of facts. The amount of real thinking done by the
class was greater in the subjects where concrete teaching material could be employed.
The truth is (1) his interest in the subject matter and its objective and (2) the degree to
which his thinking ideals with concrete and first hand experiences.

22. Conditions for training in thinking best in vocational education. Effective

thinking must be based upon clear and definite visualization of the facts to be used as
thinking material requires intensive and adequate experiences in the use of the same kind
of facts to solve the same kind of situations. Vocational training provides both the best
opportunity for repetitive in thinking.

23. Morale. The three chief characteristics or traits of good or high morale are: (1)
willingness to conform to the rules (2) recognition and following of capable leadership
(3) acceptance of the establish aims and procedure of game.

24. Occupational morale. Human attitudes towards employment. It is the morale of the
workers has come to be recognized as more important than any other condition of success
in a business enterprise.

25. Vocational education and morale. The development of desirable feeling among
workmen toward their employment are as follows: 1.The learner who successfully
progresses step by step believes that he will ultimately master his work is the process of
increasing self confidence. (2) The learner is spared those discouragements, which come
from the criticism and jokes of those who consider themselves already competent. (3)
Ph.DTE 805: Theories, Problems, and Issues in Technology Education 5
Professor : Dr. Alfonso G. Pacquing
Student : Antonio P. Antonio, Summer 2006

The development of occupational pride. Unless a man is proud of his calling, his zeal for
it will never high. Extreme importance of morale in all occupations is the surest and
quickest way to dignify any calling or employment is to train people efficiently to meet
its requirements.

26. General and social morale. How far occupational morale carries over into the social
field? Many workmen having high job morale also have high civic morale. Vocational
education promotes social morale only by conserving individual morale. Individual
morale is the basis on which all social morale rests. Any agency, which promotes
individual morale, contributes to general social morale.

27. Morale affects individual stability. The mental state of any individual affects his
stability and in this way affects the stability of any form of society. The measure of the
morale of an individual is not what he does under the ordinary and favorable
circumstances of life, but what he does in the face of distracting emergency and
unexpected catastrophe.

28. Stability affects individual morale. Stability greatly affects morale. It is usually the
unsuccessful individual is dissatisfied with things as they are. Unstable in the
circumstances of his personal life, he becomes unstable in his reactions to society. The
individual who is regularly employed and comfortably situated tends to become stable in
his social attitudes.

29. Vocational education promotes morale by promoting stability. Vocational

education promotes morale because it promotes stability. This relationship of vocational
education to better group morale is well shown by the seven steps in the chart below:
Vocational education—Better equipment—Better economic service—Better living
conditions—More satisfaction—Better individual morale—Better group morale.

30. Making parasites into workers. Parasitism in itself makes for dissatisfaction.
Without the satisfactions of life, their morale is grievously affected. In a society whose
general standards are that everyone should work, they feel out of touch with the great
mass of their fellowmen. Any agency, which can take care of idlers of this type and
confer on them the willingness and the ability to work, promote to that extent individual
morale which in turn promotes social morale.

31. Increasing skill and capacity of workers. The better utilization of human and
natural resources gives opportunity for social advancement and development. Every
individual is so trained that his native ability and aptitude can be marketed and used to
the best advantage. This is precisely the task of vocational education as their training
improved the ability of workers in any employment increase correspondingly, as do their
confidence and ambition, their satisfaction with the job and its opportunities, and their
earning power. An individual will always follow the same occupation as he progresses
through life.
Ph.DTE 805: Theories, Problems, and Issues in Technology Education 6
Professor : Dr. Alfonso G. Pacquing
Student : Antonio P. Antonio, Summer 2006

Consequently any system of vocational education must be prepared at all times to

help men and women to meet the changing demands of occupations and of changed
occupations. The task of vocational education with any given individual can never be said
with any safety to be finished. The need of our people for help in meeting requirements
when old jobs disappear, jobs shift in their demands, new job with new requirements are
set up as a substitute for old jobs, or new jobs arise in new field that to the degree living
conditions are improved and economic pressure is reduced individual and social morale is
increased opportunity for the intelligent use of leisure and ultimately makes such a
program develops the individual and social spirit which promotes the more intelligent use
of surplus human assets.

William C. Redfield declare the importance of human resources in the New

Industrial Day (Century Co., New York) state that the priceless worth of the great assets
we have mentioned-our people themselves; The way to crime and chaos lies plainly in the
exploitation of our men and our women as if they were coal and oil; in our free America
there is to be industrial and social freedom, its greatest and most fruitful task, the
conserving of our people themselves; the National Commission on Federal Aid to
Vocational Education declares that the two greatest assets of a nation is natural and
human resources.