School-Work Transition Aarhus, 8 June 2010

Danish Guidance Research

by Peter Plant, with kind input from Ulla Højmark Jensen, DPU

Careers

My dad is a baker, his taste is the best in muffins and cakes

And I am his aid, a real bunny maid, I’ve got what it takes

My career is in baking, it’s not my intent

I’d rather be seen in a big circus tent

Careers II

My mom has a circus, an oldfashioned one with horses and clowns

I swing the trapeze, I sell candy and sweets, yell announcements in towns

But the ring is no good place for me when instead

I’d much rather that my career was in bread

Guidance: more than a f2f interview

• Informing • Advising• Assessing• Teaching• Enabling• Advocating• Networking• Feeding back

• Managing• Innovation/Systems

change• Signposting• Mentoring• Sampling work

experience or learning tasters

• Following up

Watts’ four Ref: Watts, A.G. et al. (1996). Rethinking careers education and guidance.

London: Routledge

Society Individual

Change Radical

social change

Progressive individual change

Status quo Conservative social control

Liberal

non-directive

3 main focuses

Measuring effects of guidance:

• client outcomes, including client satisfaction

• educational and/or vocational take-up

• reduction of educational drop-outs

5 levels of evidence

Evidence can be established at different levels • Level 1 - Opinion studies, where users of guidance services provide feedback

on the perceived effects of the services they have received.• Level 2 - Outcome measurement studies with no counterfactuals.

Counterfactuals are indications of what would have happened in the absence of the guidance intervention. If no evidence on counterfactuals is available, there is no basis on which to attribute causality.

• Level 3 - Outcome measurement studies with weak counterfactuals. These are more robust than Level 2

• Level 4 - Outcome measurement studies with control by calculation. Here multivariate statistical techniques are used to control retrospectively for those who have and have not been exposed to guidance interventions.

• Level 5 - Experimental studies with a control group. This involves random assignment to guidance and non-guidance (placebo) groups; alternatively, it may be carried out by constructing a control group

(Hughes, 2009)

Transition (DK): Taster courses

• 960 schools/ 34.460 students, 9/10th grade

• 83% know of/taken part in taster courses

• 78%: helpful re educational decisions

• 13%: not at all helpful

• 9%: don’t knowRef: Uni*C, May 2009

Transition (S & DK): Work experiences

• 1000 21-year-olds looking back at work experience programmes (S: PRAO):

• 94% had taken part in PRAO• 74% felt that PRAO was (very) useful• 77% felt that PRAO helped them understand working life

Svenskt Näringsliv (2006)

• However (DK): ’Work experience is useful for about 50% of students, (but) some young people dismiss all issues related to school, work, or future planning. This group thinks of work experiences as a break from school, at the most’ Katznelson & Pless (2006)

Sociologi & psychology

• Structural: roles, structures, results • Contents: psychology, methods, communication

Re.:f Plant, P. (2007). Nordisk vejledningsforskning. Via Vejledning 11/2007. http://www.ug.dk/Videnscenter%20for%20vejledning/Forside/Virtuelt%20tidsskrift/2007%20nr%2011/Nordisk%20vejledningsforskning.aspx

Focus

fra

• Critical (S: compensating; Åsemar et al; DK: Hutters)

til

• Legitimising/policy supporting (N: splitting guidance project; DK: Rambøll Management, ’one billion kr’)

Hard or soft

• Hard outcomes: changes in positions re work, learning or training

• Soft outcomes: changes in attitudes to work, training and learning, e.g. having more confidence, increased awareness, motivation, and more clarity around options

A Danish example: user survey

• Question # 8 regarding HE-Guidance centres (2009): Has Studievalg helped you re your career decisions?

• To a high degree 14%

To some degree 50%

To a lesser degree 20%

Not at all 12%

Don’t know 3%

Total 2665 respondents 100% Based on electronic questionnaire among 50.000 students; see

www.uvm.dk/~/media/Files/Udd/Vejl/PDF09/091008%20Rapport%20STUDIEVALG.ashx

Soft?

Evidence from Learndirect (now: Careers Advice):• 100 telephone calls analysed• 1000 users were categorised• Guidance experts were interviewed• The users related the positive results (clearer

career goals, 26%; employment, 19%; training take-up, 30%; job-seeking, 25%) to their contact with Learndirect

An evaluation of the Ufi/learndirect telephone guidance trial) www.dfes.gov/research

Softer?

’Learning lives’, a project on lifelong learning and guidance:• longitudinal (2005-2008)• narrative-based study• 500 interviews with 120 persons, aged 25-84 • Outcomes: ’People can learn from their lives through the

stories they tell about them’• ’Learning is complex and multi-faceted. Support for

learning includes but goes far beyond teaching….Broad and varied opportunities for learning need to be available throughout the life course, and should be underpinned by accessible information, advice and guidance’.

Learning Lives: Learning, Identity and Agency in the Life Course www.learninglives.org/

Dropouts: what do they do? 10 years after (Source: UNI•C Statistik & Analyse, 2005)

Note 1: Incl production schools

Parents’ attitudes The mantra:

Choose according to your interests

• Youth should “find something they are interested in” (78%) (Rambøll, 2004)

• Choice of education is a relatively conflict-free issue? • Worries and concerns on the part of the parents: how will our

children cope? (Pless & Katznelson, 2005):

• ‘I was told it was stupid to close too many doors, and I figured this was true. I: Who told you that it was stupid to close doors? My parents and I think a lot of other people; my uncle said it, too. And of course, I’ve thought about it myself. You should never listen too much, you also have to do what you think is right, but I could see that it made sense.’ (Boy, first year of upper secondary school (1.g)

Coding Young people without education

Higher degree of

cultural capital

Lower degree of social capital

Higher degree of social capital

Lower degree of

cultural capital

The four youth profiles

Persistent youth The wandering youth

The despairing youth The practical youth

Higher degree of cultural capital

Lower degree of cultural capital

Lower degree of social capital

Higher degree of social capital

The despairing youth Oliver

• Primary school • Family• Friends• Work, education,

experience• Future

The practical youth Peter

• Primary school • Family• Friends• Work, education,

experience• Future

The persistent youth Vibeke

• Primary school • Family• Friends• Work, education,

experience• Future

The wandering youth Fie

• Primary school • Family• Friends• Work, education,

experience• Future

Directive or non-directive?

Ref: Kaiser, B.. Korsbæk, A. & Strager, B. (eds) (2004). Mentor - den fleksible vejleder. Esbjerg: CVU Vest

Emotional support

Directing

Adviser

Sponsor

Protector

Empathic listener

Philosophical

Midwife Non Directing

Coach

Critical friend

Challenger

Catalyst

Facilitator

Net worker

Cognitive learning

Mapping the possible roles of guidance

Ref: Stelter. R. (ed.) (2002). Coaching - læring og udvikling.

KBH: Psykologisk Forlag

                                                                  

 

Questions

HierarchicNon Hierarchic

Answers

Instructing

Teaching

Advising

Counselling

SupervisionCoaching

Mentoring

Mapping counselling approaches and sub-groups

                                                                  

 

Questions

Emotional support

Hierarchic

Directing

Non Hierarchic

Non Directing

Answers

Cognitive learning

Instructing

Giving lessens

Advising

Counselling

SupervisionCoaching

Mentoring

AdviserSponsorProtector

Empathic listenerPhilosophicalMidwife

CoachCritical friendChallenger

CatalystFacilitatorNet worker

Persistent youth

The despairing youth

The wandering youth

The practical youth

Open Youth Education/FUU, 1994-2001

• 2- 3 years• Individual learning paths: personal counsellor• Formal/non/informal learning; personal

projects; studies abroad• Focus on the learner – not the institution • Designed for dropouts: Education for All

policyRefs:Plant, P. (2000). Work Values, Open Youth Education and the Creative Career: A Danish perspective (in)

Columbus, F. (ed): European Economic and Political Issues, Vol. II, 2000. New York: Nova Science Publishers

Plant, P. (2000). Individual Careers: Individual Learning and Guidance (in) Educational and Vocational Guidance Bulletin 64/2000. Bruxelles: International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance

NEET Not in Employment, Education or Training

3 approaches

• Solving• Preventing

• Coping

Ref: Plant, P., et al. (1996). Eurocounsel. Dublin; European Foundation

www.eurofound.europa.eu/pubdocs/1997/27/en/1/ef9727en.pdf

Discourses on social exclusionRef: Levitas, R. (1998). The Inclusive Society? Social Exclusion and New Labour.

London: Macmillan Press

• RED (REdistributionist Discourse) – No money

• SID (Social Integrationist Discourse) – No work

• MUD (Moral Underclass Discourse) – No moral

What’s missing? (v/ C.T Jessing i Via Vejledning 11/2007)

Research could be conducted on e.g.:

• Guidance methods: practice based on theories?

• Guidance approaches: individual, group • Effects of guidance? • Effects of guidance training? • Developing practice: how, on what basis, which

what effects?

Other approaches

Correctives to correlations:

Knowledge accounting

• Ethical accounting

• Green accounting

Ref: Plant, P. (2001). Quality in Career Guidance. Paris: OECD

Contact & literature

Peter Plant, PhD

Guidance Research Unit

Danish School of Education

Tuborgvej 164

2400 Copenhagen NV

Denmark

pepl@dpu.dk

Further litt.:

Plant, P. (2007). Nordic Research in Educational and Vocational Guidance. In: Plant, P. (red) 2007. Ways – On Career Guidance: KBH: DPUs Forlag, pp. 15-38