Developmental & systems approach to career counselling Flashcards
Developmental approach to career counselling assessment:
What is it?
→ The concept of career maturity was introduced and career decision-making was placed within the context of human development
→ From a developmental perspective, career choice is not viewed as a static event but as a developmental process that starts in childhood and continues through adulthood
→ Career maturity – degree to which an individual has mastered the career-development tasks that he should master in his developmental stage
→ By assessing an individual’s level of career maturity, the career counsellor may identify certain career-development tasks which the individual has not dealt successfully
→ These tasks become the focus of further counselling
Career assessment in the developmental approach:
What is the model and four stages?
→ The model for developmental career-counselling assessment consists of four stages: preview, depth-view, assessment of all the data, and counselling
Preview:
→ Career counsellor reviews the client’s records and background information
→ Based on this review and a preliminary interview with the client, the counsellor formulates a plan for assessment
Depth-view
→ Counsellor assesses the client’s work values, the relative importance of different life roles, career maturity, abilities, personality, and interests
Assessment of all the data:
→ Client and career counsellor integrate all the information to understand the client’s position in terms of the career decision-making process
Counselling:
→ Counselling with the aim of addressing the career-related needs identified during the assessment process
What forms part of a development approach to career counselling?
The assessment of interests, values, personality, and abilities form part of a development approach to career counselling
What is relevant to career-development theory?
Measures for the assessment of career maturity and role saliency are relevant to career-development theory
What are the five components of career maturity?
Self-knowledge, decision-making, career information, integration of knowledge with career information, and career planning
What is used to assess the career maturity of high school and university students?
The Career Development Questionnaire is used to assess the career maturity of high school and university students
Role saliency:
, the role of worker is not equally important to everybody
→ Assessing work-role salience should form part of the career-counselling process
→ Five major arenas that an individual’s life roles are played:
1. Workplace
2. Community
3. Family
4. Academic environment
5. Leisure
→ The Life Role Inventory measures the relative important of each of these five roles
→ A factor analysis of the LRI indicated that it is not possible to distinguish psychometrically between the roles of workers and student for South African university students
Evaluation of the developmental approach to career counselling assessment:
→ The developmental approach adds to the person-environment fit approach in that it emphasises the developmental nature of career-decision-making and the need to focus on an individual’s career-counselling needs
→ However, this approach makes questionable assumptions in the context of a developing country characterised by poverty, unemployment, and crime; and the world of work which is characterised by change, uncertainty, and volatility
Assumptions:
• Career development follows a predictable path with defined stages
• The developmental tasks associated with every stage have to be successfully completed before the client can move on to a next stage. If a person is career mature he will be able to make a successful career choice
→ These assumptions do not hold in developing countries where individuals do not have the financial resources to complete their schooling, where schooling is disrupted by social and political unrest, and where job opportunities are scarce
→ Individuals are forced to find employment that may be available
The systems approach to career counselling assessment:
The systems theory framework:
→ provides the basis for an overarching or metatheoretical framework within which all concepts of career development described in the plethora of career theories can be usefully positioned and utilised in theory and practice
→ The STF denotes the complex interplay of influences through which individuals construct their careers
→ Constructivism informed development of the STF, resulting in a collaborative counselling process with the counsellor and client as more equal partners, focusing on the client’s construction of his own meaning of career
→ The STF represents both content and process influences
→ Both these influences are set within a time system of past, present, and future
→ The past influences the present and both the past and present have an influence on the future
Content:
- Intrinsic personal characteristics and the effect of the context in which the individual lives
- These subsystems are interconnected and include the individual, other people, organisations, the society, and environment
- The individual system includes intrapersonal influences such as age, gender, interests, personality, and abilities
- The individual system forms part of a larger contextual system – accommodating the social system
- The social system refers to other people systems relevant to the individual – family and friends
- The individual system and the social system are nested in the environmental-societal system, which has an influence on the individual’s career development
- These systems can change and are interacting with one another – a process of dynamic, open systems
