Group career construction counseling with disadvantaged prospective university students

Abstract

We investigated the value of a three-phase, six-step group-based career construction counselling intervention for prospective university students from disadvantaged backgrounds using an integrative, QUALITATIVE-quantitative design. The participants completed measures of career adaptability and career decision-making difficulties before and after the intervention. Results indicated that the girls’ career adaptability scores increased more than those of the boys. Notable pretest and posttest score differences were also found for both the boys and the girls in all three main career decision-making difficulties categories including Lack of Readiness, Lack of Information, and Inconsistent Information. While encouraging, longitudinal research with larger samples and more diverse participants in diverse contexts is necessary to more fully determine the value of the approach used here.