Process Technology Education Highly Valued

A study published in the Journal of Technology, Management, and Applied Engineering found that each year of Process Technology education is worth 5.3 years of job experience.

The authors of the study, Glenn E. Johnson and Dr. Robert A. Bartsch, examined records of 157 potential employees for their work experience, education, and job preparedness. The goal of their study was to examine the effects of on-the-job experience and job preparation provided by the Associate of Applied Science degree in Process Technology.

“Employers want to know if job experience should be held above education or vice versa, and technical education institutions want to prove their worth by showing that their programs prepare students for the workforce in a way that the work environment cannot,” says Lincoln Trail College Dean of Instruction Brent Todd. “The duo examined records of potential employees for their work experience, education, and job preparedness. What they found is that both years of experience as an operator and years of process technology education showed strong positive correlations to pre-hire test scores.”

The study found that for workers without much job experience, one year of PTEC education provides more job relevant competence than the same amount of time gaining experience on the job. The authors of the study argue that industry should put a high priority on hiring candidates that have worked toward a PTEC degree. They also suggest people looking to enter the process technology workforce should consider a PTEC degree as their first step.

“For institutions like Lincoln Trail College, this information validates what we (anecdotally) already knew about the program,” says Todd. “Experience is important, but a process technology education provides knowledge and skills that it takes employees more than five years to gain on their own.”

Todd presented the study to the Process Technology Advisory Council and he says it was initially met with skepticism. “It was interesting because the Council clearly did not like what they were hearing at first, but the more we talked about the study, the more heads I saw shaking in the affirmative. The study isn’t saying that education is better than experience or vice versa, but the gist is that there are things you learn in a process technology program that employees may take several years to understand.”