Training career adaptability to facilitate a successful school-to-work transition

Purpose




Virtually all contemporary scientific papers studying careers emphasize its changing nature. Indeed, careers have been changing during recent decades, for example becoming more complex and unpredictable. Furthermore, hallmarks of the new career – such as individual agency – are clearly increasing in importance in today’s labor market. This led the authors to ask the question of whether these changes are actually visible in the topics that career scholars research. In other words, the purpose of this paper is to discover the trending topics in careers.




Design/methodology/approach




To achieve this goal, the authors analyzed all published papers from four core career journals (i.e. Career Development International, Career Development Quarterly, Journal of Career Assessment, and Journal of Career Development) between 2012 and 2016. Using a five-step procedure involving three researchers, the authors formulated the 16 most trending topics.




Findings




Some traditional career topics are still quite popular today (e.g. career success as the #1 trending topic), whereas other topics have emerged during recent years (e.g. employability as the #3 trending topic). In addition, some topics that are closely related to career research – such as unemployment and job search – surprisingly turned out not to be a trending topic.




Originality/value




In reviewing all published papers in CDI, CDQ, JCA, and JCD between 2012 and 2016, the authors provide a unique overview of currently trending topics, and the authors compare this to the overall discourse on careers. In addition, the authors formulate key questions for future research.

#Trending topics in careers: a review and future research agenda

Career identity and the complex mediating relationships between career preparatory actions and career progress markers

This annual review of the career counseling and development literature presents a content analysis of refereed journal articles published in 2013. Four research questions guided the analysis: (a) What content topics were included in career development articles published in refereed journals in 2013? (b) To what extent are theory, research, and practice integrated in career development articles published in refereed journals in 2013? (c) What variation exists in the characteristics of career development articles published in refereed journals in 2013? and (d) What variation exists in the content included in theory, research, and practice articles? A total of 360 unique topics were identified in 357 articles from 24 journals. Results indicated that topic content in journals evolved slowly with limited integration of theory, research, and practice. Implications are suggested for (a) future topic content; (b) better integration of theory, research, and practice; (c) education and training; (d) journal editorial policy; and (e) future content analyses of journal articles.Keywords: content analysis, career development literature, theory, research, practiceThe Career Development Quarterly (CDQ) has published an annual review of the career counseling and development literature each year since 1989. The number of articles and journals represented in the reviews has grown over time. Each one of those 25 reviews provided a brief summary of the content of articles by topic, as well as a commentary on the nature of the literature published that year (Arbona, 2000; Bikos, Dykhouse, Boutin, Gowen, & Rodney, 2013; Chope, 2008; Cook, 1991; Creager, 2011; Dagley & Salter, 2004; Erford & Crockett, 2012; Flores et ah, 2003; Guindon & Richmond, 2005; Harrington & Harrigan, 2006; Hartung, 2010; Jepsen, 1992; Luzzo & MacGregor, 2001; Niles, 1997; Patton & McIlveen, 2009; Salomone, 1993; Savickas, 1989; Spokane & Hawks, 1990; Stoltz-Loike, 1996; Subich, 1994; Swanson & Parcover, 1998; Tien, 2007; Walsh & Srsic, 1995; Whiston & Brecheisen, 2002; Young & Chen, 1999). In reviewing past CDQ annual reviews, we identified some noteworthy trends. The first trend is that the previous CDQ annual reviews tended to include articles from common journals, including CDQ, Journal of Vocational Behavior (JVB), Journal of Career Assessment (JCA), and Journal of Employment Counseling (JEC). The second trend involved the method for summarizing the literature. Most authors used headings to identify clusters of content in the literature. Finally, some reviews explicitly posed a focus question reflecting the practical purpose of the annual review, such as "How can the research published last year be useful to counselors?" (Erford & Crockett, 2012, p. 291); "What can the reader learn about career counseling and development from these articles?" (Savickas, 1989, p. 127); and "What can the practitioner and researcher learn from the literature to aid their work?" (Jepsen, 1992, p. 99). Our 2013 review builds on previous reviews while also using a content analysis approach to examine the literature. We also include a special emphasis on analyzing the literature in terms of integrating theory, research, and practice.Content Analyses of Journal ArticlesContent analyses of journal articles provide an opportunity for a discipline to periodically evaluate the congruence of the professional literature with the discipline's purpose, interests, and values (Buboltz, Deemer, & Hoffman, 2010; Lee, Rosen, & Bums, 2013). Journal article content analyses also identify trends and changes, which likely affect counseling practice (Loveland, Buboltz, Schwartz, & Gibson, 2006; Williams & Buboltz, 1999). These are the aims of the current review.Content analyses of journal articles take four basic forms. The first involves analyzing the content of multiple journals in career development in a given year, such as those published in CDQ, beginning with Savickas's 1988 review (Savickas, 1989) and continuing through Bikos et al. …

A Content Analysis of Career Development Theory, Research, and Practice—2013

The high academic performance of medical students greatly influences their professional competence in long term career. Meanwhile, medical students greatly demand procuring a good quality of life that can help them sustain their medical career. This study examines validity and reliability of the tool among preclinical students and testifies the influence of their scholastic performance along with gender and academic year on their quality of life. A cross sectional study was conducted by distributing World Health Organization Quality of Life, WHOQOL-BREF, survey among medical students of year one to three at Alfaisal University. For validity, item discriminate validity(IDV) and confirmatory factor analysis were measured and for reliability, Cronbach’s α test and internal item consistency(IIC) were examined. The association of GPA, gender and academic year with all major domains was drawn using Pearson’s correlation, independent samples t-test and one-way ANOVA, respectively. A total of 335 preclinical students have responded to this questionnaire. The construct has demonstrated an adequate validity and good reliability. The high academic performance of students positively correlated with physical (r = 0.23, p < 0.001), psychological health (r = 0.29, p < 0.001), social relations (r = 0.11, p = 0.03) and environment (r = 0.23, p < 0.001). Male student scored higher than female peers in physical and psychological health. This study has identified a direct relationship between the academic performance of preclinical students and their quality of life. The WHOQOL-BREF is a valid and reliable tool among preclinical students and the positive direction of high academic performance with greater QOL suggests that academic achievers procure higher satisfaction and poor achievers need a special attention for the improvement of their quality of life.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186%2Fs12909-015-0476-1.pdf

The interplay between academic performance and quality of life among preclinical students

Career Development Strategies as Moderators Between Career Compromise and Career Outcomes in Emerging Adults

Traditional predictors of academic performance in college, such as measures of verbal and mathematical abilities [i.e., Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)] and academic achievement (i.e., high school GPA), often account for less than 25% of the variance in college performance, thus leaving a considerable amount of variance unexplained. The primary goal of this study was to examine developmental variables that may account for academic achievement beyond the traditional indices mentioned. Specifically, the relationships among four categories of life-skills and cumulative GPA were examined. A hierarchical multiple-regression analysis revealed that the four life-skills categories predicted an additional 9.4% of the variance in cumulative GPA beyond high school GPA and SAT scores. Of the four categories, physical fitness/health maintenance skills made a statistically significant, unique contribution to predicting cumulative GPA. Because of the exploratory nature of the current study, suggestions are made for condu...

Life-Skills as a Predictor of Academic Success: An Exploratory Study:

This study was conducted to develop and examine the work-related daydream construct. The content of undergraduate college students’ daydream journals were analyzed using an exploratory qualitative research methodology. The data suggested that the work-related daydream phenomenon was a tangible and accessible process that presented fully developed career narratives. Embedded within these career narratives were elements of individuals vocational self-concepts (i.e., work values, aspirations, life roles, and lifestyle choices). Six work-related daydreams are described in detail. Implications for the use of work-related daydreams as a career assessment technique are discussed.

Work-Related Daydreams: A Qualitative Content Analysis.

During the past 2 decades, constructivist and social constructionist perspectives have become firmly established within career counseling literature and practice (Brott, 2004; Cochran, 1997; Collin & Guichard, 2011; Savickas, 2002). A fundamental tenet common to both of these perspectives is that the creation of personal narratives constitutes the process and the product of reality construction. Essentially, narratives serve to coalesce self-conceptions (i.e., values, interests, aspirations, and expectations) into a coherent yet tractable sense of self (Campbell & Ungar, 2004). From this perspective, self-concept formation is primarily an individual and psychological meaning-making process (Bujold, 2004). Career narratives reflect individuals' subjective understandings of themselves in relation to work. Narratives can portray career aspirations as well as the meaning of work in an individual's life (Cochran, 1997). The goal of career assessment and intervention from a narrative approach, therefore, is to help individuals understand how the elements and themes of their career stories shape and reshape their sense of self and influence their career decisions (Savickas, 2002). Counselors collaborate with clients in an attempt to explore objective career information embedded within clients' narratives and to create subjective interpretations of these narratives (Christensen & Johnston, 2003).Recent research suggests that work-related daydreams may serve as a central feature of a highly personalized qualitative career assessment strategy grounded in the narrative approach (Pisarik, Rowell, & Currie, 2013). Work-related daydreams often take the form of fully developed, detailed, personal stories that depict an individual within the role of work. Daydreams are accessible and tangible narratives that contextualize an array of features of one's self-concept as implemented in various life roles. Moreover, they offer a medium for clients to express personal tions and of self that are exclusively from the client's perspective.DaydreamsDaydreaming is a process in which an individual spontaneously develops a train of thought without conscious attention to immediate stimuli (Singer, 1981, 2003). Almost everyone engages in daydreaming on a daily basis (Klinger, 1990), and it is estimated that individuals devote from 30% to 50% of daily mental activity to the act of daydreaming (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010). In fact, researchers suggest that daydreaming is the psychological state of consciousness that the brain naturally defaults to in the absence of a task requiring deliberate concentration (Mason, Bar, & Macrae, 2007).Daydreams have long been conceptualized as stories or narratives, often pictorial in nature. For example, in The Principles of Psychology, James (1890/1950) regarded individuals' streams of consciousness to be absorptions in fantasies and narratives, whereas Freud (1908/1959) offered a vivid example of a client's daydream that took the form of a contextually rich narrative in his essay "Creative Writers and Daydreaming." Singer (1981) referred to daydreams as "an unfolding sequence of private responses . . . 'pictures' in the mind's eye" (p. 3), which are often accompanied by vivid mental imagery. Daydreams range in content from simple recalls of past episodes to fleeting thoughts about daily concerns and elaborate fantasies about the future (Mason et al., 2007; Stawarczyk, Majerus, Van der Linden, & D'Argembeau, 2012).The ubiquity of the daydreaming phenomenon has led researchers to speculate that they serve important psychological functions. Most notably, daydreams are believed to be essential for organizing internal information, reflecting on personal goals, and planning complex future events (Stawarczyk et al., 2012). In most cases, the content of daydreams is directly related to current and salient life concerns (Klinger, 1990). Daydreams may also cohere self-schema through a reflective process and therefore contribute to the formation and maintenance of a sense of self (Klinger, 1999). …

Lacy K. Currie

Papers

Career Development Strategies as Moderators Between Career Compromise and Career Outcomes in Emerging Adults

Life-Skills as a Predictor of Academic Success: An Exploratory Study:

Work-Related Daydreams: A Qualitative Content Analysis.

Recording and Interpreting Work‐Related Daydreams: Effects on Vocational Self‐Concept Crystallization