In Saudi Arabia, there is a clear, and general, shortage of technical and vocational manpower. The shortage in the country's manpower indicates that there is a gap between workforce needs and trained personnel. This gap created through a prolonged history of bad image for manual jobs. Lately, however, many Saudi students are interested in vocational higher education. The recent interest in vocational-technical education suggests a promising shift in students' attitudes toward vocational-technical education. The purpose of this study is to examine the attitudes of freshmen, in Saudi Technical Colleges, toward vocational-technical education.
The dependant variable for this study is: The attitudes of Saudi freshmen in technical colleges toward vocational-technical education. The independent variables are in the following categories: Freshmen's religious beliefs; freshmen's traditions and customs; freshmen's perceptions of vocations; parent's occupations and education; freshmen's perceptions of people around them (friends, teachers and parents) attitudes toward vocational-technical education; type of high school attended (academic or technical high school), birthplace size, socioeconomic status, and age.