Promoting career management skills through seminars : evaluative study with portuguese college students

Abstract

Over recent years, several Vocational Psychology authors (e.g., Luzzo, 2000; Lalande, Hiebert, Magnusson, Bezanson, & Borgen, 2006; Whiston & Sexton, 1998) have been drawing attention to the need of career counselors become involved in evaluating their interventions. The present study evaluates the effects of two forms of a preventive Personal Career Management Seminar (PCMS, forms A and B; ; GPC A/B, Taveira et al., 2006) on several facets of the career exploration process (CES; Career Exploration Survey, Stumpf, Colarelli & Hartman; 1983, adapt. by Taveira, 1997) of college students. The GPC-A is designed for undergraduate students in the intermediate years of first and second cycles of a university curriculum integrated in the European Higher Education area (adequated to 1999 Bologna’s compromise) and functioning with the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS), while the GPC-B is designed for PhD students in the intermediate years of their PhD program. Total participants in the study were 140 young adults, from both sexes (38.6%, 54 men and 61.4%, 86 women), with ages ranging from 19 to 48 years old (M=24.43, SD=4.75). Analyses of covariance of the difference between post-and pre-test measures of career exploration were performed, to test differences between the experimental groups of undergraduate and PhD students, and their respective control groups, having as covariate the pre-test results. On the average, results demonstrate sufficiently robust beneficial effects of GPC seminar on college career exploration.