Study of vocational clients profile: implications for educational settings

Abstract

Following recent recommendations for vocational intervention (e.g., Lent, 2001; Savickas, 2001; Fouad, 2001; Vondracek, 2001), and based on career theory and research, the mission of the Career Counselling Unit - Centre for Counselling Psychology and Human Development, in the Department of Psychology, University of Minho, is to facilitate scientific understanding of career choice and development, translate career theory and research into practice, and to train new professionals, in order to serve an increasingly diverse clientele, experiencing a multitude of academic and work transitions, in diverse systems and environments. Therefore, in this paper the authors reaffirm the importance of research as a core activity in vocational psychology, presenting results from the analysis of the Career Counselling Unit’s client database. In this paper, clients from the Career Counselling Unit are characterized by social, demographic, academic and diagnostic variables. Results point out differences varying with school year, sex, problem, intervention modality, and intervention length. Implications for interventions in educational settings are discussed from developmental and educational theory.