The major vocational education research needs in North Carolina in the 1980s should represent the major research areas in other states. Research issues will fall into four major areas: policy, planning, finance, and citizen participation. If no appropriate state policy on vocational education is in place, an appropriate one must be established and an organizational arrangement to implement it must be developed. A review of the planning process should address three fundamental questions: (1) What is needed to establish a better method for job forecasting? (2) What is required to assure effective teachers and appropriate curriculum guides? and (3) Does planning focus on the student? Finance inquiry should investigate a basic funding formula to sustain programs in the future and a"weighted formula" to service the disadvantaged and the handicapped. Aspects of citizenship participation that need study are citizen views of the effectiveness of vocational education and advisory councils. For any research efforts to have appreciable impact on a state's educational policy, the state must have a commitment to research, and previous research should have been used to improve programs. (YLB)