Browsing by Subject "Vocational education"

The aim of this study was to find out what reasons young people give for dropping out of vo-cational education or why they consider dropping out. Incompletion of upper secondary level studies is a current topic and is more widely associated with exclusion of young people. Dropping out of school can be viewed from the perspective of school engagement: dropping out our leaving school is a result of failed engagement. Study motivation affects school en-gagement. In the theories of study motivation intrinsic interest and autonomy play an im-portant role. In earlier studies reasons for dropping out of vocational education and training have been mental health issues, wrong choice of field and socio-economic reasons. This study was carried out as a qualitative, inductive content analysis. The aim was not to prove an existing theory, but to create categories based on the research material. The re-search material was picked out from Demi-fi -web page. Four conversations from years 2013 – 2015 were selected. In this study I concentrate on the reasons young people give for drop out in their texts. Three different reasons were given for dropping out of vocational education. The reasons were external issues, such as the actions of the educational institute and teachers’ lack of professionalism, lack of interest and failed choice of field and lack of personal resources, such as issues with mental health and wellbeing. According to the results of this study, it can be stated that more support should be given to student in choosing the right field of study. Al-so educational institutes should be developed and more attention should be paid to young peoples’ mental health and wellbeing.