A study of Arizona vocational education follow-up systems was designed to survey problems in and promising practices for developing information systems to provide useful data for decision making. Interviews with state, county, college, and school district personnel revealed that the major problem faced by those conducting follow-up studies at both secondary and postsecondary levels was to get sufficient returns (60-80 percent). Solutions to this problem include keeping addresses of students current, motivating students and schools to participate, and using questionnaires that elicit the requested information. Other problems that the study found were clarification of definitions for "program,""completer," and "leaver," and the distribution of reports to decision makers and target audiences. Because the study found that the current vocational education student follow-up system is centralized and has a response rate of 16-19 percent, recommendations for improving the system include the following: (1) the system should be decentralized to involve local school districts, with questionnaires mailed from and returned to the school the student attended; (2) a student orientation to the follow-up process should be conducted prior to the student's leaving school; (3) the state should continue to design the questionnaire, compile the data, and report the results; and (4) the decentralized system should be pilot tested before statewide implementation and after definitions have been clarified. (Thirty-four references are listed.) (KC)