College of Design – School of Building Construction – Ph.D. Proposal Defense –Candace Washington

Date: Friday, May 1st, 2026

Time: 12:00 pm- 2:00 pm Eastern Time

Location: Microsoft Teams

Committee:

• Dr. Ece Erdogmus, Founding Dean, College of Architecture, Art, and Construction, Clemson University (co-advisor and co-committee chair)

• Dr. Eunhwa Yang, School of Building Construction, College of Design, Georgia Institute of Technology (co-advisor and co-committee chair)

• Dr. Jing Wen, School of Building Construction, College of Design, Georgia Institute of Technology

• Dr. Carol Colatrella,  School of Literature, Media, and Communication, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, Georgia Institute of Technology

• Dr. Heidi Diefus-Dux,  Department of Biological Systems Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Title

Enhancing High School Counselors’ Knowledge and Confidence in Promoting Construction Management Careers: A Mixed Method Study

Abstract 

The U.S. construction industry faces a significant and escalating shortage of construction management (CM) professionals driven by an aging workforce, increasing project demand and complexity, and a limited pipeline of students entering CM degree programs. These challenges are further compounded by disconnects between industry workforce needs and the career guidance students receive in high school settings. Although CM offers stable and high-opportunity career pathways, many students remain unaware of the profession. High school counselors, who play a critical role in shaping students’ postsecondary trajectories, often report limited knowledge of CM and low confidence in advising students about CM career pathways. These advising gaps restrict students’ access to CM opportunities and contribute to long-term workforce shortages.

To address these gaps, this study investigates how targeted professional development influences high school counselors’ confidence in advising students about construction management careers. The professional development intervention incorporates structured CM instructional content alongside an experiential learning component using a virtual reality (VR) module derived from the NSF-funded Virtual/Augmented-Reality-Based Discipline Exploration Rotations (VADER-R) project. While VR-based tools have been explored for student recruitment, their application in counselor-focused professional development remains limited.

Grounded in Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), this mixed-methods study focuses on counselor self-efficacy as the primary construct of interest. The study develops and validates a construction management–specific adaptation of the Career Counseling Self-Efficacy Scale (CCSES-CM) to measure counselors’ confidence in advising students about CM pathways. In the quantitative phase, a pre–post design is used to assess changes in counselors’ CM advising self-efficacy following participation in the professional development workshop. In the qualitative phase, semi-structured interviews are conducted with a sample of participants to further explore how the intervention influenced their confidence, perceptions, and advising intentions.

The anticipated contributions of this study are threefold. First, it provides a validated, discipline-specific instrument (CCSES-CM) for measuring counselor self-efficacy in construction management advising. Second, it offers empirical evidence on how targeted professional development can strengthen counselors’ confidence in promoting workforce-critical career pathways. Third, it presents a scalable and adaptable professional development model that can be implemented by school districts, higher education institutions, and workforce development organizations. By strengthening counselors’ capacity to communicate accurate, relevant CM career information, this research supports improved alignment between educational advising systems and the construction industry's workforce needs.