Barriers to adolescents' information seeking for career decision making

Abstract

Nearly 400 Canadian adolescents were surveyed about their information seeking for career decision making. A written questionnaire gathered data on degree of helpfulness of various information sources and the ways in which these sources have helped and asked about some of the barriers to information seeking faced by adolescents. Thirty semistructured interviews with participants drawn from the same sample asked participants about their decision‐making and information‐search processes, their concerns about these processes, and the barriers they face in accessing helpful information for career decision making. This article focuses on the data related specifically to the barriers faced by the participants, revealing myriad difficulties that can hinder adolescent career decision makers. Forty percent of youth do not know where to go for help in their decision making, and 38% feel that they need to go to too many different places for the information they require. As well, the respondents revealed that trustworthiness of information sources is critical to the ultimate usefulness of the help received. The discussion suggests some avenues for further research which would advance understanding of these barriers, and makes suggestions for improved delivery of information services to adolescents making career decisions.

The information behaviours of disadvantaged and disengaged adolescents

“…Such findings align with previous studies of general population adolescents (e.g. Agosto and Hughes-Hassell, 2005;Julien, 1999), and for our subjects, also with ChatmanÕs (1996) concept of situational relevance and proposition that an individual living in an impoverished state will fail to see external information sources as of direct and immediate value to lived experiences. Such findings suggest that a rethink is needed in how PLs meet the needs of adolescents, particularly in disadvantaged and disengaged circumstances.…”

“…Sanchez-Navarro & Aranda (2013) report 54% (n2054) of 12-18s have learnt to use the Internet themselves; while a study by Foss et al (2013, p.181) reports that Òwhile school becomes more of a motivating factor to search for children as they age into adolescence, classroom search education is not keeping paceÓ. In such circumstances public libraries (PL) can provide a key information access and support role, but we also know that the use of PL declines dramatically with adolescence, attributed to a disconnect between service provision and service demand (The Reading Agency, 2011, The Reading Agency, 2004, and negative views of libraries and librarians (Agosto and Hughes-Hassell, 2005;Julien, 1999). In relation, recreational reading, which is reported to enhance academic performance, social engagement, and personal development, also declines throughout adolescence (Howard, 2011).…”

A Conceptual Model of Predicting the Effects of Motivational Factors on the Students’ Career Decisions to join Hospitality Industry in China

“…In most of the career literature, intrinsic dimensions can be applied to evaluation of career success (Ballout, 2009;Heslin, 2005;Julien, 1999;Stringer & Kerpelman, 2010;Valcour & Ladge, 2008;Willis et al, 2009). Little of the literature, however, related the intrinsic dimensions with career decisions, or put these two determinants into a study of hospitality students.…”

Horizon informationnel sur la formation et le travail chez de jeunes adultes non diplômés en situation de précarité

“…Il existe plusieurs taxinomies des sources d'information (Agarwal, Xu et Poo, 2011), mais la littérature existante sur le sujet concernant les jeunes adultes laisse entendre que les sources relationnelles et non institutionnelles semblent constituer le type de sources d'information souvent privilégiées par ces derniers (Julien, 1999 (Delors, 1996), il nous semble nécessaire de préciser davantage ce qu'il est entendu par formation et travail.…”