Development and Evaluation of a Career Development Intervention Using Modern Theories of the Self

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to develop and evaluate a career development intervention. The intervention sought to address weaknesses in current career research by placing a strong emphasis on being practically useful, particularly with mature adult clients. The intervention used modern self-theory, in particular the possible selves construct, because of its potential to capture many of the requirements of a modern career development intervention. These requirements include the need to consider overall well-being and the whole person, encourage adaptability, recognise individual uniqueness, and deal with recurring career transition and motivation. The intervention was developed in a series of stages that reflected cycles of formative evaluation and consultation with career practitioners. The intervention consisted of an instrument and a counselling process. The first stage concerned development of the instrument. This stage included identifying items through an open-ended survey of New Zealanders, designing a paper based questionnaire and conducting test-retest and item analyses. In response to cycles of industry feedback the instrument was computerised and a counselling process manual was developed. Interviews with career counsellors also took place in order to deepen understanding of the nature of career development practice in New Zealand. A field study of the intervention's impact found that those receiving the intervention had significantly and meaningfully higher comfort with their career decidedness, but did not rate themselves as significantly more decided, than the comparison group that received more general career counselling. Qualitative research with counselors participating in the field study also took place. The intervention's strengths appear to be in improving comfort about career issues; speeding up the counselling process; addressing barriers and improving motivation; identifying personal, intrinsic and idiosyncratic goals; and linking to whole of life issues. Its weaknesses are in providing relevant self-based items that capture the diversity and idiosyncrasy of clients, and not providing new information about careers to clients with a narrow career choice counselling goal. In a software usability study, a number of potential improvements to the software were identified, in particular the need for a more varied and interesting layout. A concurrent validity study found moderate relationships between possible selves and the well-being related variables of optimism, life satisfaction and self-esteem. The role of general descriptor threats, which represent personal and private aspects of the self-concept that are feared and rated as likely to occur, had a particularly strong relationship with the well-being variables. Overall this research demonstrates the potential of the possible selves construct as a counselling framework. The research also demonstrates practical difficulties in conducting ecologically valid research with mature adult career counselling clients and their counsellors.