Evaluation Results 2002/03

JA Job Shadow Really Works!

“I want to stay in school. I now have ambition and a desire to run my own company someday.”  -- JA Student 

Junior Achievement’s external evaluation team, Worldwide Institute for Research and Evaluation (WIRE), selected 15 local JA Area Offices to allow for a geographically distributed sample of JA sites and students.  JA Area Office staff at these sites selected a minimum of five JA Job Shadow events to be included in the study, to the extent that 111 unique JA Job Shadow events and 1,516 students were included in the evaluation study. 

The primary purpose of this summative evaluation was to determine the impact of JA Job Shadow on student learning and attitudes, and to determine the general satisfaction of all stakeholders. Specifically, WIRE addressed the following questions:

• Does student knowledge of business and its relation to school learning increase?

• What factors contribute to student learning?

• What implementation model produces the greatest learning impact?

• Do students’ attitudes and beliefs change?

• What do stakeholders perceive as the benefits of participation?

Student post-test performance was significantly higher than the pre-test performance of those who had yet to participate in any JA Job Shadow activities. This finding indicates that students’ understanding of business and educationally related concepts increased after participating in JA Job Shadow.

Summary of Most Favored Qualities of JA Job Shadow

       What Students Like Best:

• Meeting people and talking to employees

• Seeing/touring the workplace

• Hands-on activities

       What Teachers Like Best:

• One-on-one interaction with workplace hosts

• Students having the opportunity to see the workplace

• The exposure students get to different careers and jobs

       What Workplace Hosts Like Best:

• Interaction with students

• Eagerness of students to learn

• Chance to discuss career opportunities and goals with students

View the entire report here.