Abstract
Welcome to the first issue of Volume 47 of Career Development and Transition for Exceptional Individuals (CDTEI). First, HAPPY NEW YEAR and welcome to 2024! We hope your 2024 is off to great start. The journal is certainly off to a great start in 2024. We are thrilled to share that the journal now boasts an impact factor of 3.3 and is ranked 2/43 in Special Education and 4/73 in Rehabilitation according to the 2023 Release of Journal Citation Reports with 2022 Web of Science data.
In this issue, we highlight articles that feature a broad range of high-quality studies, including one article that is part of our special series focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Topics include supporting youth with disabilities in goal-setting and attainment, considerations for young women with disabilities and paid employment experiences, interventions to support independent living, and perspectives of educators from rural settings.
First, Shogren and colleagues examined the initial efficacy of the Goal Setting Challenge App. This app provides a technology-delivered option for teachers who are interested in delivering the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction. The article provides data on goal-attainment outcomes for youth with disabilities and discusses implementation challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic. These authors earned two Open Science badges for sharing their data and materials. This is the third article to display an Open Science badge and the first to display two badges in CDTEI for demonstrating openness and transparency in research. For more information about Open Science practices (https://www.cos.io/initiatives/badges) and CDTEI, please reach out to Co-Editor Allison Lombardi.
Second, Hirano and colleagues investigated the paid employment experiences of young women with disabilities after high school. Their investigation reflects the need for inter- and intra-agency collaboration to ensure that young women with disabilities experience the same opportunities as those without disabilities. Additionally, the authors recommend that researchers consider interventions that are gender specific.
Our third article is by Taconet and colleagues. This systematic literature review focuses on independent living interventions. Findings from this review suggest that prompting strategies and technology-driven interventions with an emphasis on cooking and cleaning are the most prevalent in supporting youth and young adults with fostering independent living skills as they transition into adulthood.
Schutz et al. contributed the fourth article. Using a two-phase approach to mixed methods (i.e., convergent design and explanatory sequential design) for this study, the authors explored the perspectives of high school administrators and special education staff (e.g., special educators, school counselors, and paraprofessionals) in rural communities. They examined participant perspectives regarding their roles and responsibilities related to providing career development opportunities for youth with disabilities. Findings explained how staff in rural districts are identified and the roles that these staff members play in providing career development to youth with disabilities.
We continue our special series on diversity, equity, and inclusion in transition, guest edited by James Sinclair and Suzanne Kucharczyk, from the 46:3 and 46:4 issues. In this issue, we share an article by Shikarpurya and Gilson. They conducted a pilot sequential transformative explanatory mixed-method study examining the experiences of South Asian families during the transition planning process. The authors used the Community Cultural Wealth framework, a strengths-based framework, to bring forth the voices of South Asian families. We thank these authors and those whose work appeared in previous issues for the special series on DEI in secondary transition. We appreciate their commitment to extending equity frameworks to transition through research, intervention, preparation, and practice.
Finally, our annual Division on Career Development and Transition (DCDT) conference will be held in Chantilly, VA in 2024. Please check the DCDT website for updates throughout this year: https://dcdt.org/. We continue to appreciate your readership and membership in DCDT, and we hope that you find the work highlighted in this issue beneficial to your daily practice. Enjoy!