From Super to Savickas: A Review of Career Theory & its Application (Dr. JoAnn Harris Bowlsbey at 2014 APCDA Conference)

From Super to Savickas: A Review of Career Theory & its Application

Asia Pacific Career Development Association Conference

May, 2014

Presented by:JoAnn Harris-Bowlsbey, Ed.D.Executive Director, Content DevelopmentKuder, Inc.

• Explains the phenomenon of career choice and development.

• Serves as a foundation for career interventions.

• Predicts outcomes that can be expected from career interventions and environmental influences.

Why study theory?

• Career Development Theory – Defines and describes career development through

five life stages and sub-stages.

– Provides an expansive definition of career as a combination of interacting life roles.

– Stresses the centrality of self-concept as the driving force in career choice.

– Stresses the role of values in making career choices.

– Depicts the balance of internal and external influences on career choice.

Donald E. Super

The Career Rainbow

The Arch of Determinants

Practical Application

• Assist individuals to – know their interests, aptitudes, and values.

– form a realistic, strong, and clear self-concept.

– develop time perspective and knowledge that today’s choices affect the future.

– view work as one important role that interacts with all other life roles.

– recognize and adapt to influences in the environment that affect career choice and change.

• Circumscription, Compromise, & Self-Creation– Individuals choose occupations they perceive to be a

“good fit” related togender appropriateness.intellectual demand.interests and personality.

– Individuals are indecisive when the options they see are perceived as undesirable.

– Career choices may be made by compromising, which is the process of modifying career aspirations related to these three characteristics.

Linda Gottfredson

Practical Applications

• Assist individuals to– have a realistic picture of their interests and

personality and of the job duties and requirements of occupations.

– view all occupations as accessible by members of both genders and all social backgrounds.

– identify occupations that would be a “good fit” for their interests, personality, and academic ability.

• Personality Types & Environment Interactions– Individuals can be described as a combination of

two or more of six personality types.

– Environments can also be described as a combination of these same six personality types.

– Individuals of a given type seek environments of the same or similar type.

– To the extent that individuals find this match, they are satisfied and productive.

John Holland

The Holland Hexagon

Practical Applications

• Assist individuals to– identify their personality type.

– find occupations, postsecondary majors, and leisure activities that match this type.

– gather information about these options and make an informed choice.

– know how to make career moves, when necessary, that are most compatible with personal type.

John Krumboltz

• Learning Theory– Career decision making is affected by

genetic endowment and special abilities.environmental conditions.instrumental and associative learning.task-approach (decision-making) skills.

– From these, individuals developunique self-observations.unique worldview generalizations.task-approach (decision-making) skills.

Practical Applications

• Assist individuals to– understand their unique capabilities.

– engage in meaningful learning activities related to career choice.

– create realistic views of self and of the world.

– purposefully expand their interests and be open to new opportunities.

– be open to and take advantage of unexpected opportunities (happenstance).

Lent, Brown, & Hackett

• Social Cognitive Theory– Self-efficacy is a very important ingredient of career

choice and success.

– Individuals are drawn to activities they think they can perform well and avoid those they think they cannot perform well.

– Self-efficacy is developed through personal accomplishments.vicarious learning (watching others; role models).social persuasion (feedback from others).outcome expectations (expected rewards).

Practical Applications

• Assist individuals to– Identify and develop skills that allow them to

perform well in some specific areas, especially those that can be related to paid employment.

– Create opportunities for individuals to receive positive reinforcement for use of their skills.

– Identify occupations where these skills can be used and rewarded.

Peterson, Sampson, Reardon, & Lenz

• Cognitive Information Processing (CIP)– Good career choices result from gathering and

processing information effectively.

– The career decision-making process is both cognitive and affective and can be defined in specific steps (communication, analysis, synthesis, valuing, and execution).

– Decision making is affected by career beliefs, self-talk, and self-awareness.

– Negative career thoughts need to be removed or modified before good decision making can occur.

Practical Applications

• Assist individuals by– assuring that they have “readiness” for career

planning and decision making by attending to negative thoughts or self-talk that may be barriers to good decision making.

– providing accurate and timely career information on which to base decisions.

– helping them learn an effective decision-making process that engages both mind and emotion.

Mark Savickas

• Career Construction Theory– Individuals have one or more life themes that guide

their career choices.

– These life themes become apparent as individuals tell their life stories.

– Individuals construct their careers by imposing meaning on what they do in work – meaning that helps them live out their life theme(s).

– In today’s uncertain world, career adaptability is exceedingly important.

Practical Application

• Help individuals to– identify important life themes through reflection

on the past chapters of their lives.

– identify work activities that would allow them to play out those themes.

– identify action steps that they need to take in order to make career choices or changes.

– understand the concept of career adaptability and be psychologically prepared to make changes as needed.

A Summary

• Influences on Career Choice and Development– Genetic endowment.

– Awareness of interests, skills, aptitudes, and values.

– Awareness of need to plan ahead and effect of current choices on future outcomes.

– Clear understanding of personal life theme(s) and values.

– Strong self-concept and self-efficacy.

– Cognitive decision-making skills.

– Environmental conditions, including family and peers.

– Career adaptability/willingness to engage in new learning.

Continua to Consider

• Developmental vs. Choice Point• Individual Control vs. Environmental Control• Theoretical vs. Practical• Total Life Involvement vs. Work only• Research-supported vs. Non-supported

Developmental vs Choice Point

• Donald Super’s theory is the most developmental in nature because– It defines all life stages and sub-stages and how career

development occurs in each.

– It defines all life roles and how they interact in an individual’s life space.

– It defines most, if not all, of the influences that affect career choice and development.

• John Holland’s theory is the most “choice point” theory because– It does not focus on how individuals become a specific “type,”

but rather on how to identify that type and match it in occupations, postsecondary majors, and other life activities.

Internal vs External Control

• Krumboltz and Peterson, Sampson, Reardon, & Lenz appear to be highest on internal control due to– emphasis on exercising control via a rational decision-

making process.– emphasis on removing personal barriers and purposefully

seeking new learning experiences.

• John Holland appears to be highest on external control due to– his position that an individual’s personal code is formed

through heredity and environment and is typically stable across the life span.

Theoretical vs Practical

• John Holland’s theory offers the most practical application due to– providing both informal and formal assessments to measure one’s

Holland type.– providing databases that assign codes to all occupations and

postsecondary majors.– ease of use of this matching system in web-based and print-based

interventions for both individuals and groups.

• The theories of Gottfredson and Lent, Brown, & Hackett appear to be the least practical due to– Identifying key factors in career choice without providing tools to

measure those factors in any concrete way.– not providing any way to translate self-perceptions into occupational

choices.

Total Life Involvement vs Work Only

• Super leads the group in applying career development principles to the totality of life because– no other theorists (other than Sunny Hansen)

deal with this issue at all.

– his definition of career is “all of the activities occurring in all life roles at a given point in time.”

– his Career Rainbow and its attendant concepts are an invaluable depiction of the impact of work on other life roles and vice versa.

Research-supported vs Non-research-supported

• By far, Holland’s theory is the most research-supported theory of all, followed by that of Donald Super because– Holland himself conducted vast research studies of the

theory while he was Vice-President of Research at ACT.

– Hundreds of students and professionals worldwide have researched his theory. Results are reported in Holland’s book Making

Vocational Choices and in a scholarly paper (http://www.career.fsu.edu/documents/technical%20reports/TR50.pdf) written by Bullock, Andrews, Braud, and Reardon.

In Closing

• All of these theories add to the well of what we know about the antecedents and process of career choice.

• It is professionally wise to be an eclectic, in other words, to draw from all the theories.

• It is useful to apply different theories and their proposed interventions to different clients, depending upon their needs and your resources in the situation.

Questions?Thank you

JoAnn Harris-Bowlsbey, Ed.D.

Executive Director, Content [email protected]

Kuder, Inc.302 Visions Parkway, Adel, IA 50003

www.kuder.com