Constructivist Theory in Career Counseling

Constructivist Theory in Career Counseling

You see the glass half full; someone else sees it half empty. Constructivist theory attempts to understand why two people see the same thing -- like this glass -- but describe it differently. Career counseling uses constructivist theory to explain why people see careers so differently. Use the theory to identify jobs you will be happy with, not just those you are good at.

Constructivist Theory

Many people struggle to choose a meaningful career even when they are swimming in career information. This career development model is based on the idea that you interpret the world of work as you personally see it. You reference past experiences to interpret new information. Career counselors use this theory to get in your head – or at least see how you view careers -- and to help you use this information to find the job that is perfect for you.

Benefits

This theory is a different approach counselors can take; it is holistic and works across cultures. Your counselor can learn about your work-life story, your values and beliefs about different careers and why you have made the career choices you have. Instead of feeling like the right career will eventually come along, you learn that you are in charge of your career and that you can choose change. Greater self-awareness of your underlying assumptions help you see things more clearly.

Limitations

As with all good things, this theory has its limits. For it to work, you must accurately recall past experiences and information to engage in self-reflection. You must also be comfortable sharing and interacting with your career counselor. Your counselor must be good at analyzing what you are saying and recognizing constructs. Lacking objectivity, this theory relies on the counselor's ability to subjectively identify thought patterns, parameter sets, schema and belief and value systems that aren't obvious. The theory works best when used in combination with other career theories like Holland's Career Typology Theory and Super's Life-Span/Life-Space Theory.

Approaches

Techniques and approaches are designed to get you talking about your life without judging your experiences. The key is to learn about how you respond to life and open you up to dream about future careers. You might work with the counselor to create a life portrait to understand how you see your career. Other techniques include meaning-making, narratives, metaphors, critical reflection, story-telling, life-lines, card sorts and life-role mapping. Techniques often involve the counselor actively listening to a story or event and paying special attention to verbs, phrases or patterns.

(http://woman.thenest.com/constructivist-theory-career-counseling-19379.html)

Linda Gottfredson: Theory of Circumscription

Linda Gottfredson: Theory of Circumscription

Where do our interests, abilities, and other factors contributing to career choice come from?



http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/

John J. Liptak: Emotional Intelligence

John J. Liptak: Emotional Intelligence

"He has published a number of scientific articles on emotional intelligence, and he frequently conducts national and international workshops on assessment-related topics, career development, and emotional intelligence. He is also the author of seven career counseling and job search assessments that are used in schools, businesses and community agencies around the world. His latest assessment, the Job Survival and Success Scale, helps people become more emotionally intelligent as they transition from school to the workplace. In addition to his research interests, John consults with a wide variety of organizations on topics such as lifeskills program development, lifeskills IQ training, and assessment development."  (http://www.eiconsortium.org/members/liptak.htm)

Nancy Schlossberg: Transition Theory

Nancy Schlossberg: Transition Theory(published in 1990s)


PowerPoint presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/KeciaMcManusEdD/transition-theory-4-s-2013

D.V. Tiedeman: Career Decision-Making Theory

David V. Tiedeman and Anna Miller-Tiedeman: published theory in the 1960s

Career Decision-Making Theory

Descriptive: Describe or explain the choices that an individual makes when deciding on a career or some aspect of a career

Prescriptive: Focus on an ideal approach to decision-making

Deep respect for the individual and his/her uniqueness and complexity

Personal reality vs. Common reality
Personal reality: an individual's sense of what is right
Common reality: what others say an individual should do

Two major stages:
1. Anticipating: exploration, crystallization, choice, clarification

2. Adjusting: induction, reformation, integration

Ann Roe: Personality Development Theory

Ann Roe: published theory in the 1990s

Individuals select their occupation based on biological, sociological, and psychological differences.  These psychological differences originate from children's interactions with their parents.

Roe's classification system:
8 groups
Service
Business contact
Organization
Technology
Outdoor
Science
General culture
Arts and entertainment

6 rows
Represent six different levels of complexity and responsibility for each occupation (the difficulty and complexity of decisions)

Propositions of Roe's theory

1. Limits of genetic inheritance: intelligence and temperament are hereditary
2. Limits of sociological and economic factors: race, gender, cultural or social attitudes, economic limits
3. Development of interests and attitudes: determined by early patterns of satisfactions and frustrations
4. Determinants of interest: interests are determined by degree of need satisfaction
5. Development of needs into motivators: the more intense the needs, the more intense the need to become successful

Roe's model of parent-child interaction: 3 toes of parental attitudes

1. Concentration on the child: overprotective OR overdemanding
2. Avoidance of the child: rejection OR neglect
3. Acceptance of the child: Parents encourage independence, do not ignore or reject the child, create a relatively tension-free environment; casual acceptance (low key attitude) OR loving acceptance (affirming, demonstrative, outward show of support)

**NOT supported by research but still shows up in career information.

John Krumboltz: Social Learning Theory of Career Decision Making; Learning Theory of Career Counseling; Planned Happenstance Theory

J. Krumboltz developed the following three theories:

Social Learning Theory of Career Decision Making (1979)

Four factors influence how people choose their career paths:

1. Genetic endowment and special abilities: innate abilities and physical characteristics
2. Environmental conditions and events: nature, technology, society, economy, or culture
3. Learning experiences: instrumental and associative learning
4. Task approach skills: how people approach the completion of tasks (emotional responses, work habits, personal standards of performance)

The interaction of the factors listed above lead people to develop self-observation generalizations (assessing oneself) and world-view generalizations (assessing one's environment and making predictions about the future).  These factors and generalizations prompt people's behaviors, which then lead to careers.

Learning Theory of Career Counseling (1979, 1990)

A development of the Social Learning Theory of Career Decision Making (described above), applying the theory to career counseling.  Counselors use the theory to help clients make more accurate self-observation generalizations and worldview generalizations, learn new task approach skills, and take appropriate career-related actions.

• People should expand their capabilities and interests, rather than base decisions on existing characteristics only
• People should prepare for changing work tasks, rather than static occupations
• People should feel empowered to take action, rather than receive a diagnosis
• Career counselors should help clients deal with all career problems, not only occupational selection

Planned Happenstance Theory (Mitchell, Levin, and Krumboltz, 1999)

The idea that people can prepare for and create opportunities for unexpected events that lead to career selection and success.  Career counselors should help clients develop curiosity, persistence, flexibility, optimism, and risk-taking.  Exploring one’s options, interests, and abilities generates opportunities for improving one’s quality of life, and developing necessary skills allows one to seize opportunities when they arise.

Indecision vs. Open-mindedness: Indecision implies that the client is paralyzed and unable to able to make a choice, whereas open-mindedness implies that the client is willing to explore interests and career paths that they may not have considered otherwise.

Restrictiveness of congruence: Do not allow congruence to be a barrier to a client seeking a certain occupation.

https://www.grinnell.edu/sites/default/files/documents/Krumboltz.pdf

Gail Hackett: Social Cognitive Career Theory

In 1994, R.W. Lent, S.D. Brown, and G. Hackett developed the Social Cognitive Career Theory: "Self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectancies both predict academic and career interests" (Gybsers, 2009, p. 34).  The theory is based on the foundational work of theorist A. Bandura.

Self-efficacy beliefs: people's judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performance

Outcome expectancies: personal beliefs about probable response outcomes

1. A person's beliefs about their abilities and about probably outcomes lead to the development of interests;
2. Interests predict goals that lead to the selection and practice of activities;
3. Activities lead to goal fulfillment and feelings of success

http://contactpoint.ca/wikis/social-congnitive-theory-lent-brown-and-hacketts/

Steven D. Brown: Social Cognitive Career Theory

 In 1994, R.W. Lent, S.D. Brown, and G. Hackett developed the Social Cognitive Career Theory: "Self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectancies both predict academic and career interests" (Gybsers, 2009, p. 34).  The theory is based on the foundational work of theorist A. Bandura.

Self-efficacy beliefs: people's judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performance

Outcome expectancies: personal beliefs about probable response outcomes

1. A person's beliefs about their abilities and about probably outcomes lead to the development of interests;
2. Interests predict goals that lead to the selection and practice of activities;
3. Activities lead to goal fulfillment and feelings of success

http://contactpoint.ca/wikis/social-congnitive-theory-lent-brown-and-hacketts/

Robert W. Lent: Social Cognitive Career Theory

In 1994, R.W. Lent, S.D. Brown, and G. Hackett developed the Social Cognitive Career Theory: "Self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectancies both predict academic and career interests" (Gybsers, 2009, p. 34).  The theory is based on the foundational work of theorist A. Bandura.

Self-efficacy beliefs: people's judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performance

Outcome expectancies: personal beliefs about probable response outcomes

1. A person's beliefs about their abilities and about probably outcomes lead to the development of interests;
2. Interests predict goals that lead to the selection and practice of activities;
3. Activities lead to goal fulfillment and feelings of success

http://contactpoint.ca/wikis/social-congnitive-theory-lent-brown-and-hacketts/

John Holland: Theory of Vocational Personalities and Work Environments

http://www.careerkey.org/choose-a-career/hollands-theory-of-career-choice.html#.VNkorVqyjlI

In the 1950s, John Holland theorized that personality and work environment are measurable, and that the two should be matched in order to find a satisfying career.  Holland's theory describes six basic personality types (RIASEC, described below).  One type is typically dominant; an individual's top three types -- in order -- make up that person's Holland Code.  The goal is to match an individual's code, or personality type, with his or her career.

• Realistic: Working with things is more important than working with people; concrete thinkers rather than abstract
• Investigative: Curious; focused on the outcome and abstract ideas; interested in independent, cerebral work
• Artistic: creative, expressive, and personally open; vulnerable; interested in the means rather than the end
• Social: People-oreinted; focus on service to others; solves problems by interacting with other people and reaching a consensus
• Enterprising: People-oriented; interested in influencing people more than helping people; interested in wealth
• Conventional: More conservative in the work environment; good fit for organized, planning, and support positions; places importance on following the rules

Other points:

• Congruence: The relationship of the personality to the work environment
• Consistency: The relatedness of personality type and work environment
• Differentiated vs. undifferentiated: An individual's code is differentiated when his or her three-letter code "clusters" to one side of the hexagon, revealing that there is little tension between his or her personality traits.  Career selection for this individual is more focused on how to use his or her interests and abilities in a chosen career.  An individual's code is undifferentiated when his or her three-letter code does not cluster to one side of the hexagon.  Rather, two or three of his or her traits are in tension with each other.  Individuals with undifferentiated codes may need to focus on the the most dominant personality trait when selecting a career and find other ways outside of work to satisfy the other aspects of his or her personality.

Career assessments:

• Self-Directed Search (SDS)
• Strong Interest Inventory

Donald Super: Lifespan Theory (Week 3)

Donald Super's Lifespan Theory was developed in the 1950s and last revised in 1990.

Super theorized that "career choice was a process, not an event" (Gysbers, p. 23).  He emphasized the relation that various life roles had to one another and suggested that our decision to pursue a certain occupation is based on our career's relation to these other roles.  These roles change over one's lifetime and require different allotments of time at various developmental stages.

Career maturity/career adaptability: "a readiness to engage in the developmental tasks appropriate to the age and level at which one finds oneself" (Gysbers, p. 24)

• Self-concept is central to Super's theory; the way you perceive yourself and your situation changes over time based on life experiences
• Six major roles: 
1. Child
2. Student
3. Homemaker
4. Worker
5. Citizen
6. Leisurite

• Developmental stages:
• Birth
• Growth (0-15)
• Exploration (15-25)
• Establishment (25-45)
• Maintenance (45-65)
• Disengagement (65+)
• Maxicycle and minicycle: Developmental stages listed above (maxicycles) are not necessarily sequential; people cycle back through them within each of these stages (minicycle)

Web source: http://www.careers.govt.nz/educators-practitioners/career-practice/career-theory-models/supers-theory/