WED 466: Unit 4

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WED 466 Unit 4

• Psychological Foundationsof Workforce Education

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General Objective

• Understands the psychological foundations of
  workforce education.

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Career Development

• a lifelong process involving psychological,
  sociological, economic, and cultural factors that
  influence individuals selection of, adjustment
  to, and advancement in the occupations that
  collectively make up their careers (Brown, 2003,
  p. 30)
• Brown, D. (2003). Career information, career
  counseling, and career development. Boston, MA
  Allyn Bacon.

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Good vs. Bad Theories

• Good theories have well-defined terms and easily
  interpreted constructs.
• Good theories explain the career development
  process for all groups.
• Good theories explain why people choose careers
  and become dissatisfied with them.
• Good theories are parsimonious.

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Early Theories

• Have limited applicability to special groups
  women, European men and women.
• Are culturally oppressive because they are rooted
  in Eurocentric beliefs
• Reflect independent, not dependent career
  decision making.

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Career Choice and Development Categories

• Trait and Factor Theories
• Developmental Theories
• Theories Based in Learning Theory
• Socioeconomic Theories

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Hollands Theory of Vocational Choice

• Individual personality is the primary factor in
  vocational choice.
• Interest inventories are personality inventories.
• Daydreams about occupations are precursors to
  occupational choice.
• Identify is related to a small number of focused
  vocational goals.
• Career success and satisfaction is related to
  choosing an occupation that is congruent with
  ones personality.

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Hollands Six Personality Types

• Realistic
• Investigative
• Artistic
• Social
• Enterprising
• Conventional

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Hollands Six Work Environments

• Realistic Environment
• Investigative Environment
• Artistic Environment
• Social Environment
• Enterprising Environment
• Conventional Environment

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Theory of Work Adjustment (TWA)

• People have two types of needs.
• Biological (survival)
• Psychological (social acceptance)
• These needs give rise to drive states.
• Work environments have requirements that are
  analogous to individual needs.
• Workers select jobs because of the perception
  that the job will satisfy their needs.

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Predicting Worker Success

• (i.e., worker adjustment)
• Skills
• Job-related skills
• Aptitudes
• Potential to develop job-related skills
• Personality
• Combination of skills and aptitudes

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Supers Life-Span, Life-Space Theory

• People differ in their abilities, personalities,
  needs, values, interests, traits, and
  self-concepts.
• People are qualified, by virtue of these
  characteristics, each for a number of
  occupations.
• Each occupation requires a characteristic pattern
  of abilities and personality traits.
• Vocational preferences and competencies change
  with time and experience.
• Self-concepts are increasing stable beginning in
  late adolescence.
• The process of change is a series of life stages.

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Supers Life Stages

• Growth Stage
• Exploratory Stage
• Establishment Stage
• Maintenance Stage
• Decline Stage

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Supers Life-Span, Life-Space Theory (continued)

• The nature of the career pattern is determined by
  the individuals parental socioeconomic level,
  mental ability, education, skills, personality
  characteristics, career maturity, and the
  opportunity to which he/she is exposed.
• Success in coping with environmental demands
  depends on the readiness of the individual to
  cope (career maturity).
• Career maturity is a hypothetical construct.
• Life stage development can be guided partly by
  the maturing of abilities and interests and
  partly by aiding in reality testing and in the
  development of self concepts.

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Supers Life-Span, Life-Space Theory (continued)

• The process of career development is developing
  and implementing occupational self-concepts.
• Several factors influence the process of
  synthesis of or compromise between individual and
  social factors.
• Work satisfaction is proportional to the degree
  to which they have been able to implement
  self-concepts.
• Work and occupation provide a focus for
  personality organization.

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Krumboltzs Social Learning Theory

• Factors that influence career decision making
• Inherited characteristics
• Environmental conditions and events
• All previous learning experiences
• Task approach

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Socioeconomic Theories

• Status Attainment Theory
• Family socioeconomic status influences
  occupational choice.
• Dual Labor Market Theory
• Core firms have internal labor markets.
• Peripheral firms make no long-term commitments to
  employees.
• Race, Gender, Career
• African Americans earn less than whites.
• Women earn less than men.

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Emerging Theoretical Statements

• Social-Cognitive Career Theory
• Interaction of people with their environment is
  highly dynamic.
• Career-related behavior is influenced by
  behavior, self-efficacy beliefs, outcome
  expectations, goals, and genetically determined
  characteristics.
• Direct and indirect variables influence actual
  career choice and development.
• Performance in educational activities and
  occupations is the results of interactions among
  ability, self-efficacy beliefs, outcome
  expectations, and goals.

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Emerging Theoretical Statements

• Career Information-Processing Model
• People develop self-knowledge and knowledge about
  careers.
• Individuals draw on generic information-processing
  skills to make career decisions.
• Generic Information Processing Skills are CASVE
  communication, analysis, synthesis, valuing, and
  execution
• Metacognitions are the cognitive functions
  essential to monitoring and regulating the
  decision-making process.

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Work and Cultural Values

• Cultural values are factors important to career
  development and vocational behavior.
• Contextual variables socioeconomic status,
  family or group influence, and discrimination
  influence career choice, satisfaction, and/or
  success.

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Career Choice and Satisfaction

• Values beliefs about how one should function.
• Values relate to
• Human nature
• Person-nature relationship
• Time orientation
• Activity
• Self-control
• Social relationships
• Collateral
• allocentrism

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Career Choice and Satisfaction

• Enculturation process by which individuals
  incorporate beliefs and values of their cultural
  group to form a values system
• Monoculturalism beliefs and values of one
  culture
• Biculturalism the unlikely concept of adopting
  the values of two or more cultures
• Acculturation enculturation of beliefs from a
  culture different from ones own.
• Dominant cultures values that are often at odds
  with the values of minority cultures

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Browns Values-Based theory

• Highly prioritized work values are the most
  important determinants of career choice for
  people who value individualism.
• Collective social values heavily influence
  occupational decision making.
• Cultural values regarding activity do not
  constrain occupational decision making.
• Differing value systems of men, women, and
  different cultural influence occupational entry
  rates.
• Choosing an occupational value involves a series
  of estimates.
• Occupational success is related to job-related
  skills.
• Occupational tenure is partially the result of
  the match between the cultural and work values of
  the worker, supervisors, and colleagues.

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Contextualist Theory of Career

• Career-related behaviors are goal-directed
  results of the individuals construction of the
  context in which they function.
• Actions take place in a series of sequential
  steps that occur in social context from which the
  actor cannot be separated.

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Theories of Decision-Making

• Prescriptive models describe how decisions ought
  to be made.
• Descriptive models describe how decisions are
  actually made.

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Summary

• Theories of career choice and development provide
  guides to this complex phenomenon.
• Trait and factor theories (particularly Hollands
  model) are of greatest influence.
• There is increasing interest in theories based in
  learning theory.
• Constructivists theories are receiving
  increasing attention.