Efficacy of school-based career guidance interventions: A review of recent research

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the impacts of career guidance interventions on school students’ career-related skills, knowledge and beliefs by combining relevant empirical studies conducted in the last 10 years. A random-effects meta-analytic technique was employed for this purpose. After screening, electronic databases using pre-defined eligibility criteria, nine studies involving a total of 1,433 participants were included in the final meta-analysis. The analysis yielded a weighted mean effect size of 0.42 (95% confidence interval = 0.19, 0.65; z = 3.61, p < 0.01) which may be construed as a moderate-to-high effect size with a significant difference between the treatment and control conditions at post-treatment. As a result, post-test career-related outcomes in students who received career guidance were significantly higher than in non-guidance groups. The results suggest that career interventions may provide some modest developmental progression in school-age children and adolescents particularly through improving learners’ career decidedness and attitudes such as future time perspective. These findings might have strategic implications for policy and practice. This paper extends past research on career guidance effectiveness by identifying the combined effect size of relevant career interventions.

Training Teachers for the Career Guidance of High School Students

“…Making a suitable career choice that offers satisfaction and professional fulfillment is a complex task, often requiring support from adults, teachers, counselors, or parents to make informed decisions [47]. Schools have teachers and specialized counselors in career guidance and should play a central role in this process, ensuring the "constant processes of accompaniment and mediation" ( [20], p. 220).…”

“…School support is seen as a contextual, timely boundary condition to prepare students to navigate school-to-work and career transitions [3]. Careerready students are expected to have a well-established career plan, even during high school, with specified goals and short-term, medium-term, and long-term objectives [19,20].…”

“…The cooperation of teachers, parents, and community organizations is vital for the complete preparation of students for their professions. [10,20,22]. Also, it is important for schools to implement tailored counseling policies to prevent discrimination, social inequalities, and disparities [23].…”

“…A fourth notable limitation of this study is the potential influence of external factors or contextual variables that were not controlled for during the training and evaluation process (such as teachers' specialization, teaching experience, and personality traits), and the metaanalytic study of Sharapova et al (2023) emphasizes the importance of these variables. These unaccounted-for factors could have impacted the participants' responses and the overall outcomes.…”

El uso de narrativas en matemáticas como una forma de ayudar en la elección de estudios universitarios para estudiantes de bachillerato

“…La orientación vocacional y el acceso a recursos de asesoramiento pueden ayudar a abordar esta limitación (Dodd, Hanson, & Hooley, 2022). Además de estos factores, la presión por tomar decisiones de carrera puede generar altos niveles de estrés y ansiedad entre los estudiantes de secundaria haciendo necesaria una intervención pedagógica que considere esta problemática concreta (Sharapova, Zholdasbekova, …, & Bozshatayeva, 2023). Por tanto, la elección de una carrera universitaria en estudiantes de secundaria es una problemática polifacética que involucra la falta de autoconocimiento, la influencia de factores externos, la falta de información y la presión emocional.…”