Career Counseling Theories

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Career Counseling Theories

• Dr. J.N.Williamson

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Social Learning Cognitive Theories

• Social conditioning, social position, life
  events are thought to significantly influence
  career choice.
• People are thought to be influenced by
• Genetic endowment special abilities
• Contextual experiences
• Learning experiences
• Skills learned in managing tasks
• Key elements in the career choice process are
  problem solving decision making skills.
• Career choice is the interaction of cognitive
  affective processes.

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Key points in Social Learning Cognitive Theories

• Individuals who resort to personal agency or
  assume total responsibility for the future model
  an attitude others should emulate.
• Individuals are encouraged to develop strategies
  to overcome barriers that interfere with choice
  implementation.
• Learning is a key element in this group of
  theories. (i.e. learning increases range of
  occupations considered)
• Indecision might be linked to limited educational
  background.
• This group of theories addresses faulty thinking
  that can obscure rational decision making.
  Discovering and unlearning faulty beliefs about
  career choice and multiple life roles is a major
  objective of these theories.

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Krumboltzs Learning Theory of Career Counseling
(LTCC)

• First to propose a social learning theory of
  Career Counseling
• Career Development involves four factors
• Genetic endowment special abilities
• (primarily a factor that can limit learning
  experiences subsequent career choices)
• Environmental conditions events (note. P39)
• Learning experiences
• (instrumental associative)
• Task approach skills

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Krumboltzs Learning Theory of Career Counseling
(LTCC)

• Krumboltz associates emphatically stress that
  each individuals unique learning experiences
  over the life span develop the primary influences
  that lead to career choice. These influences
  include
• Generalization of self derived from experiences
  and performance in relation to learned standards.
• Sets of developed skills used in coping with the
  environment.
• Career-entry behavior such as applying for a job
  or selecting an educational or training
  institution.

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Krumboltzs Learning Theory of Career Counseling
(LTCC)

• The social learning model emphasizes the
  importance of learning experiences and their
  effect on occupational selection.
• Career decision making is considered to be an
  important skill that can be used over ones
  lifespan
• Factors that influence individual preference in
  this social-learning model are composed of
  numerous cognitive processes, interactions in the
  environment, and inherited personal
  characteristics and traits.
• Educational and occupational preferences are
  direct, observable results of actions and of
  learning experiences involved with career tasks.
  (If an individual has been positively reinforced
  while engaging in the activities of a course of
  study or occupation, the individual is more
  likely to express a preference for that course of
  study or field of work.

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Role of Counselor in LTCC

• Identifying content from which certain beliefs
  and generalizations have evolved.
• Probe assumptions and presuppositions of
  expressed beliefs and use this information to
  explore alternative beliefs and courses of
  action.
• Assisting individuals to understand fully the
  validity of their beliefs is a major component of
  the social learning model
• (note bullets p. 40).

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Krumboltzs Learning Theory of Career Counseling
(LTCC)

• Observations for Career Counseling
• Career decision making is a learned skill
• Persons who claim to have made a career choice
  need help too (career choice may have been made
  from inaccurate information and faulty
  alternatives)
• Success is measured by students demonstrated
  skill in decision making (evaluation of decision
  making skills are needed)
• Clients come from a wide array of groups
• Clients need not feel guilty if they are not sure
  of which career to enter.
• No one occupation is seen as best for any one
  individual
• The client is viewed as one who is exploring and
  experimenting and should be empowered to take
  actions that help to create a satisfying life.
  Challenges that involve educational opportunities
  and available work options, should be approach
  with a positive attitude that promotes positive
  outcomes.

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Happenstance Approach Theory(Mitchell, Levin,
Krumboltz, 1999)

• The primary premise suggests that chance events
  over ones life span can have both positive and
  negative consequences.
• Unpredictable social factors, environmental
  conditions, chance events over the life span
  are to be recognized as important influences in
  clients lives.
• The overarching desirable outcome is to empower
  and prepare each client for positive actions that
  take advantage of unexpected events and help them
  cope with negative consequences in the future.

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Happenstance Approach Theory

• Happenstance Approach Theory suggests that
  counselors are to assist clients to respond to
  conditions and event in a positive manner.
• Clients are to learn to deal with unplanned
  events, especially in the give-and-take of the
  life the 21st century workforce.
• Five critical client skills
• Curiosity
• Persistence
• Flexibility
• Optimism
• Risk-taking

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Happenstance Approach TheoryPractical
Applications

• Clients need to expand their capabilities
  interests
• Clients need to prepare for changing work tasks,
  not assume that occupations will remain stable.
• Clients need to play a major role in deal with
  all career problems not just with occupational
  selection.
• Career counselors need to play a major role in
  dealing with all career problems, not just with
  occupational selection. (many theorists have
  suggested that career personal counseling
  should become integrated.) note list of other
  suggestions p.43

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Cognitive Information Processing Perspective

• Cognitive Information Processing is applied to
  career development in terms of how individuals
  make a career decision and use information in
  career problem solving and decision making.
• CIP is based on ten assumptions.
• The major strategy of career intervention is to
  provide learning events that will develop the
  individuals processing abilities. In this way
  clients develop capabilities as career problem
  solvers to meet immediate and future problems.

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Cognitive Information Processing Perspective
(chart p.44)

• 1. Career choice results from an interaction of
  cognitive and affective processes
• 2. Making career choices is a problem-solving
  activity
• 3. The capabilities of career problem solvers
  depend on the ability of cognitive operations as
  well as knowledge.
• 4. Career problem solving is a high-memory-load
  task
• 5. Motivation

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Cognitive Information Processing Perspective
(chart p.44-45)

• 6. Career development involves continual growth
  and change in knowledge structures.
• 7. Career identity depends on self-knowledge.
• 8. Career maturity depends on ones ability to
  solve career problems
• 9. The ultimate goal of career counseling is
  achieved by facilitating the growth of
  information-processing skills.
• 10. The ultimate aim of career counseling is to
  enhance the clients capabilities as a career
  problem solver and a decision maker.

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Cognitive Information Processing Perspective
(chart p.44-45)

• Using these assumptions, the major strategy of
  career intervention is to provide learning events
  that will develop the individuals processing
  abilities. Clients develop capabilities as
  career problem solvers to meet immediate as well
  as future problems.
• The stages of processing information begin with
  screening, translating, encoding input into
  short-term memory then storing it in long-term
  memory and later activating, retrieving and
  transforming input into working memory to arrive
  at a solution. The counselors principal function
  is to identify the clients needs and develop
  interventions to help clients acquire the
  knowledge and skills to address those needs.

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Cognitive Information Processing Perspective
(chart p.46)

• Career problem solving is primarily a cognitive
  process that can be improved through a sequential
  procedure known as CASVE
• Communication (identifying a need)-receiving,
  encoding, and sending out queries
• Analysis (interrelating problem components)-
  identifying and placing problems in a conceptual
  framework)
• Synthesis (creating likely alternatives)
  formulating courses of action
• Valuing (prioritizing alternatives) judging each
  action as to its likelihood of success and
  failure and its impact on others
• Execution (forming means-ends strategies)
  implementing strategies to carry out plans.

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CIP cont. CASVE

• This model emphasizes that career information
  counseling is a learning event.
• This model is unique to other social learning
  theory cognitive models because the role of
  cognition is a mediating force that leads
  individuals to greater power and control in
  determining their own destinies. The client is
  viewed as one who has a career problem or a gap
  exists between the clients current situation and
  a future career situation. Counselors are to
  seek out the problems and factors involved in
  this gap.
• Once the problems are identified the counselor
  develops problem-solving interventions. Problem
  solving and decision making are valuable skills
  that can be used throughout the lifespan.

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CIPCASVEProblem Solving

• Problem Solving is considered to be a series of
  thought processes that eventually lead to
  solutions of problems and remove the gap between
  a current situation and a preferred one.
• The accomplishment of this goal (problem solving)
  involves information processing domains such as
• self-knowledge,
• occupational knowledge, and
• decision making skills.
• In the decision making process, the individual
  uses
• The strength of this theory is in its practical
  application to solving career problems.
• Note the seven-step sequence for career delivery
  service (p.47)

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Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT)

• SCCT is embedded in Social Cognitive Theory which
  blends cognitive, self-regulatory, and
  motivational processes into a lifelong
  phenomenon.
• SCCTs major goals are to find methods of
  defining specific mediators from which learning
  experiences shape and subsequently influence
  career behavior.
• The aim is to explain how all variables such as
  interests, abilities, values interrelate and
  more important how all variables influence
  individual growth and the contextual factors
  (environmental influences) that lead to career
  outcomes.
• The term personal agency is also emphasized. This
  term reflects how and why individuals exert power
  to either achieve a solution, such as career
  outcome, or adapt to career changes.

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SCCTBanduras model of Casuality

• The triadic reciprocal (bidirectional model)
• Personal and physical attributes
• External environmental factors
• Overt behavior
• All three interact to the point of affecting one
  another as causal influences of individuals
  development.
• Using this logic, SCCT conceptualizes the
  interacting influences among individuals, their
  behavior, their environments to describe how
  individuals influence situations that ultimately
  affect their own thoughts behaviors.

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SCCTKey theoretical constructs

• The personal determinants of career development
  have been conceptualized as
• Self-efficacy
• Outcome expectation
• Personal Goals
• The big three are considered to be building
  blocks within the triadic causal system that
  determine the course of career development and
  its outcome.

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SCCTSelf-Efficacy

• Self-efficacy is not viewed as a unitary or fixed
  trait, but rather as a set of beliefs about a
  specific performance domain.
• Self-efficacy is developed through four types of
  learning experiences
• Personal performance accomplishments
• Vicarious learning
• Social Persuasion
• Physiological states reactions
• (Self-efficacy is strengthened with repeated
  success and weakened with repeated failure.)

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SCCTOutcome Expectations

• Outcome expectations are also regarded as
  personal beliefs about expectations or
  consequences of behavioral activities.
• Some individuals are motivated by extrinsic
  reinforcement (i.e. receiving a reward)
• Some individuals are motivated by self-directed
  activites (i.e. pride in oneself)
• Some individuals are motivated by the actual
  process of performing the activity (i.e. reading
  a book or playing a ballgame).

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SCCTPersonal Goals

• Personal Goals are considered guides that
  sustain behavior.
• While processing personal goals, individuals
  generate personal agency that interacts with the
  three building blocs which shape self-directed
  behavior.

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SCCTInterest Development /Values

• Individuals develop interests through activities
  in which they view themselves as competent and
  generally expect valued outcomes.
• Interests fail to develop when weak and negative
  outcomes are expected from an activity.
• Values are subsumed in the concept of outcome
  expectation.
• Values are preferences for particular reinforcers
  (i.e. money, status, autonomy).