Translating Career Theory to Practice: The Risk of Unintentional Social Injustice
James P. Sampson, Jr.1
Keynote Presentation
International Association of Educational and Vocational Guidance Conference
Coherence, Co-operation and Quality in Guidance and Counselling
3 June 2009
Jyväskylä, Finland
“The nature and quality of private individual decisions are now a matter of considerable public
importance, as are the extent and quality of the career guidance services available to support them. Such
services need to be widely accessible on a lifelong basis, to serve the needs of individuals, the economy
and wider society.” This statement by the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training
(Cedefop) (2009, p. 13) highlights two essential, and sometimes conflicting, elements of guidance policy:
effectiveness and access. Achieving a satisfactory balance between effectiveness and access requires a
better understanding of the effectiveness of career guidance in relation to its cost. The examination of
effectiveness in relation to access presented in this paper is based on three assumptions. First, the career
theory that influences the design of career guidance interventions has a substantial influence on the
effectiveness and cost of service delivery. Second, the cost of delivering career guidance interventions
strongly influences the access that persons have to the services they need. Third, limitations in the
effectiveness and access individuals have to career guidance is a social justice issue. These three
assumptions are depicted in Figure 1 which follows.
Figure 1. Translating Career Theory to Practice and the Potential Impact on Social Justice
This paper begins with an identification of the elements of career guidance and continues with an
examination of the translation of career theory to practice, the effectiveness of career guidance
interventions, and the access people have to career guidance. Collaborative counseling is then proposed as
an intervention to improve access to career guidance. The paper ends with a discussion of balancing
effectiveness and access in delivering career guidance interventions.
1
James P. Sampson, Jr. is the Mode L. Stone Distinguished Professor of Counseling and Career Development,
Associate Dean of the College of Education, and Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Technology in
Counseling and Career Development at the Florida State University. Gloria Colvin and Casey Dozier assisted in the
content analysis of the literature included in this paper. Helpful reviews of the manuscript were provided by Nancy
Arthur, Pamela Carroll, Casey Dozier, Janet Lenz, Susie Musch, Robert Reardon, Lauren Sampson, Sandy
Sampson, and Walter Wager. Correspondence should be addressed to [email protected] or The Career Center,
Florida State University, 100 South Woodward Avenue, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4162.
Translating Career Theory to Practice
Elements of Career Guidance
The following elements of career guidance are defined to avoid confusion in the use of terms that
sometimes have differing meanings in various countries. These elements include the nature of career
guidance, the persons who are served, and the practitioners who deliver services. Career guidance
provides “services intended to assist people, of any age and at any point throughout their lives to make
educational, training and occupational choices and to manage their careers” (OECD, 2004, p. 19). Career
guidance interventions include individual interviews, group discussions, school lessons, structured
experiences, and assistance via the telephone or the Internet, as well as persons’ use of self-help resources
in schools, offices, and on the Internet (OECD, 2004).
Persons receiving career guidance include: individuals, clients, students/advisees, customers,
patrons, and employees. Individuals can receive assistance by using self-help career resources available in
books, magazines, CDs, videos, audiotapes, and Internet Web sites without the assistance of a
practitioner. Clients use career resources within the context of a counseling relationship with a counselor.
Students/advisees use career resources within the context of a learning relationship with an instructor or
academic advisor in an educational setting. Customers use career resources within the context of a helping
relationship with a practitioner in an agency setting (such as an employment center or one-stop career
center). Patrons use career information resources in a self-help context with support provided by a
librarian in response to a question asked in a library. Employees use career resources within the context of
a helping relationship with a human resource practitioner affiliated with an employer (Reardon, Sampson,
& Lenz, 2000). Career resources include career assessments, occupational, educational, training, and
employment information, and instructional materials and media (Sampson, Reardon, Peterson, & Lenz,
2004).
Practitioners who provide career guidance interventions include persons with a variety of
training, credentials, experience, and position titles who design and deliver career resources and services
to young people and adults (Sampson, 2008). “Considerable variation exists among countries in who
delivers career guidance, having titles such as career counsellor, careers teacher, global career
development facilitator, and vocational psychologist. In most countries career guidance is now provided
by people with a very wide range of training and qualifications. Some are specialists; some are not. Some
have had extensive, and expensive, training; others have had very little” (OECD, 2004, p. 19).
Translating Career Theory to Practice
Career theories provide a foundation for the study of vocational behavior and the delivery of
career guidance interventions. Vocational behavior is concerned with the factors that shape the choices
persons make about work and life. Career guidance interventions include the provision of assessment and
information resources, as well as the delivery of services provided by practitioners in offices on a face-toface basis and at a distance over the Internet.
Practitioners can use career theory to reduce complex vocational behaviors to more readily
understood concepts (Shoffner, 2006; Young, Marshall, & Valach, 2007). These concepts can be used as
a schema to help practitioners select career guidance interventions to meet specific client needs. Career
guidance interventions are typically designed using more than a single career theory (Spokane, 1991). The
career theory that practitioners actually use typically combines formal theories with the local experience
that those practitioners have serving their clients (Young, 2007).
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Translating Career Theory to Practice
Career theories can be both distinctive and complementary. Each career theory has distinct
features that lend themselves to understanding specific problems and populations (Osipow, 1990). Some
theories, such as the Social Cognitive Career Theory, can be used as a unifying framework for common
elements of prior career theories (Lent, 2005). Other theories, such as the Cognitive Information
Processing Approach to Career Problem Solving and Decision Making (the CIP approach; Peterson,
Sampson, Reardon, & Lenz, 2002; Sampson, Palmer, & Watts, 1999; Sampson, Reardon, Peterson, &
Lenz, 2004), can use elements of other career theories to further explain and guide career choices.
Examples of integration in the CIP approach include using the Holland Hexagon (Holland, 1997) to
organize occupational and educational options and using Super’s Career Rainbow (Super, 1980) to
balance various life roles in clarifying family issues in making a career choice.
Applying theory to practice is viewed as an essential competency for practitioners who are
engaged in delivering career guidance interventions. This competency is included in several professional
standards, including: career counselors (National Career Development Association, 1997), career and
educational guidance practitioners (European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, 2009),
educational and vocational guidance practitioners (Repetto, Malik, Ferrer, Manzano, & Hiebert, 2003),
and global career development facilitators (Center for Credentialing & Education, 1998).
Success in the translation of career theory to cost-effective guidance practice, however, is
somewhat mixed. Evidence exists that practitioners have limited interest in translating theory to practice
(Kidd, Killeen, Jarvis, & Offer, 1994; Morrow-Bradley, & Elliott, 1986). Outcome studies of career
guidance interventions have shown that the models or theories intended to guide the intervention were not
fully implemented (Miller & Brown, 2005). Problems persist despite examples of translating career
theory to practice that are presented in the literature (e.g., Gati, 1996; Reardon, Lenz, Sampson, &
Peterson, 2009) and the availability of educational and training resources using theory-based case studies
(Niles, Goodman, & Pope, 2002; Swanson & Fouad, 2009). Problems in translating career theory to
practice are especially worrisome since inappropriate or inconsistent application of theory can easily
reduce the effectiveness of career guidance interventions.
Effectiveness of Career Guidance Interventions
Ensuring the effectiveness of career guidance interventions is a key element in career guidance
policy (European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, 2009; OECD, 2004; OECD and the
European Commission, 2004). This section begins with an examination of current evidence of the
effectiveness of interventions and continues with evidence on cost-effectiveness. The section ends with an
exploration of the integration of career theory, public policy, and the costs of career interventions.
Evidence of the Effectiveness of Career Guidance Interventions
The need to clearly establish evidence of the impact of career guidance interventions is especially
important given recent funding constraints. This evidence is essential in sustaining current services and in
providing a rationale for developing new services (Magnusson & Lalande, 2005). A series of metaanalyses and research reviews have examined the effectiveness of career guidance interventions (Brown
& Krane, 2000; Bowes, Smith, & Morgan, 2005; Folsom & Reardon, 2003; Hughes & Gration, 2006;
Kidd & Killeen, 1992; Killeen, 1996; Oliver & Spokane, 1988; Spokane & Oliver, 1983; Whiston, 2002;
Whiston, Sexton, & Lasoff, 1998). In summarizing this literature, Brown (2006) stated that career
interventions are on the whole effective and outcomes do not vary by intervention format. Brown did note
that totally self-directed interventions were less effective, but could likely be improved to the level of
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Translating Career Theory to Practice
other career interventions with appropriate practitioner intervention. Brown and Krane (2000) found that
written exercises, individualized interpretations and feedback, information on the world-of-work,
modeling, and attention to building support contributed more to outcomes than a specific type of
intervention, such as individual or group counseling.
While these outcome data have been encouraging, methodological limitations in the research
need to be improved in order to provide a clearer indication of which career guidance interventions work
best in which circumstances. There are several problems that need resolution. Theoretical assumptions are
rarely stated explicitly in career intervention outcome studies. Follow-up assessment of career outcomes
has also been lacking (Magnusson & Lalande, 2005; Whiston, 2001). Also, counselor experience and
client dropout rates have not been included in the design of outcome studies (Oliver & Spokane, 1988).
The lack of a comprehensive and consistent evidence base for career guidance interventions is a
complex problem. While there is widespread agreement on the need for more outcome studies, the actual
funding for these types of studies does not appear to be equal to the demand for the information. The
funding available for career intervention outcome studies has been very limited (Magnusson & Lalande,
2005). While it is apparent that most practitioners would rather provide services than design and complete
evaluations, many practitioners are genuinely interested in better understanding and enhancing the impact
of their work. However, establishing evidence of the effectiveness of career guidance interventions
requires resources, both in terms of budget and staff time. The cost of developing an evidence base for
various career guidance interventions can be considerable, especially with longitudinal studies (Reed,
Mahoney, & Gration, 2005). While three to five year longitudinal studies are expensive, their potential
value in documenting and improving guidance interventions make them worth the investment. Policy
makers and senior managers need to provide consistent funding and staff time for evaluation (Sampson,
2008). The work of theorists also needs to be supported with funding if ongoing progress is to be made in
enhancing career theory and its application. Theorists have traditionally received limited funding for their
work as governments and foundations have shown more interest in funding guidance interventions that
tend to produce more immediate results. It is inappropriate for policy makers and managers to hold
practitioners accountable for creating an evidence base for their practice if they are not provided with the
resources necessary to do the work.
Evidence of the Cost-Effectiveness Career Guidance Interventions
Providing data on the effectiveness of career guidance interventions is necessary, but not
sufficient to provide the accountability necessary to receive continued funding. The relative costs of
delivering interventions must be considered as well. Arthur and Lalande (2009) noted that “programs and
services do not occur in isolation; they are connected to the policies and practices of organizations,
funding sources, and government mandates” (p. 13). Policy makers have raised questions about what
outcomes people are receiving when they provide funding for career counseling through public policy and
legislation (Herr, 2003; Hughes, Bimrose, Brown, & Karjalainen, 2006). These concerns are reflected in
the increasing demands for accountability information (Whiston, 2001). The need to provide a stronger
evidence base for the cost-effectiveness of career guidance was a consistent conclusion from a series of
policy reviews conducted in 37 countries between 2001 and 2004 by the OECD, Cedefop, the European
Training Foundation, and the World Bank (Hughes & Gration, 2006). The OECD and the European
Commission (2004) noted that building lifelong guidance systems will require identifying cost-effective
methods of service delivery in order to expand citizens’ access to the assistance they need.
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Translating Career Theory to Practice
Cost-effectiveness is concerned with the financial investment required to achieve an outcome.
The ultimate goal is to identify the most effective approach that requires the least investment (Swisher,
2001). Unfortunately, the research on the cost-effectiveness of career guidance interventions is very
limited (Whiston, 2002). The outcome research that does exist is not particularly helpful with regard to
cost-effectiveness. It is obvious that some interventions are certainly more costly than others. In one of
the few direct cost comparisons of career interventions, the cost per contact for a brief staff-assisted
career intervention was 2.4 times lower than individual counseling (Reardon, 2006). The series of metaanalytic studies reported earlier have not conclusively shown that one type of intervention is better than
another in relation to its costs.
It is unlikely that much progress will be made in establishing clear and consistent evidence of the
cost-effectiveness of career guidance interventions until two things occur. First, the methodology for
these studies needs to become more standardized, both in terms of the outcome measures used and the
way costs are calculated. A good starting point for creating a standardized model would be to review
some of the existing approaches (Sampson, Reardon, Peterson, & Lenz, 2004; Swisher, 2001). The cost
analysis approach described by Second, the financial and staff resources required to carry out this type of
research needs to be provided consistently, as opposed to only being funded when other priorities are met
or dropped when some other problem in the organization needs attention.
A number of innovations have been developed in response to the need to improve the costeffectiveness of career guidance interventions. Examples of these innovations include: the increased use
of paraprofessionals (Lenz & Panke, 2001), the availability of brief career guidance interventions
(Sampson, 2008), the provision of curricular interventions (Folsom & Reardon, 2003), the availability of
telephone-based distance counseling (Watts & Dent, 2007), diagnosing a person’s needs at a distance
using the telephone and making referrals to local service providers as appropriate (Watts & Dent, 2007),
the provision of self-help career resources on Web sites (Sampson, 2008), the use of Internet-based
assessment (Barak, 2006; Fassinger, 2005), and the provision of services that blend face-to-face and
internet-based interventions, including social networking (Barnes, 2008).
Integration of Career Theory, Public Policy, and the Costs of Career Interventions
The lack of attention paid in the professional literature to the cost-effectiveness of career
guidance interventions is clearly a problem, since the policy makers who provide funding for career
guidance are increasingly concerned with this issue. A potential reason for the apparent lack of interest in
the costs of career guidance is a lack of awareness among career theorists, practitioners, and researchers
of the crucial importance of this issue for current and future funding. However, it is difficult to be aware
of an issue that is seldom included in the professional literature or presented at conferences. The review of
the literature for this paper revealed that little attention has been paid to integrating career theory, public
policy, and the cost-effectiveness of career guidance interventions. To better understand this situation, a
content analysis of the career guidance literature was undertaken to determine if this perception was in
fact the case. The research question was as follows: To what extent are terms related to career theory,
public policy, and the costs of career guidance interventions integrated in the guidance literature?
The content analysis utilized an iterative search method (Bowes, Smith, Morgan, 2005). Multiple
keywords were used to search across the ERIC, ISI Web of Science, and Psych INFO databases to assess
how often the topics of interest were published in English language books and peer-reviewed journals.
These databases were selected for their broad coverage of the literature in the social sciences. Multiple
databases were used in an attempt to control for variation in keyword terminology and to increase the
number of publications included in the analyses. An initial set of keywords was refined using the
thesaurus tool in both ERIC and Psych INFO. The final keywords selected were: career choice, theory,
policy, and cost.
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Translating Career Theory to Practice
The findings from analyzing all three databases for the years 1979 through 2009 showed a
substantial number of publications that included the keywords career choice and theory. When the
keyword policy was combined with career choice, the number of publications dropped dramatically.
Combining the terms career choice, theory, and cost, or career choice, policy, and costs produced no
publications for the ERIC and Psych INFO databases, and only 10 total publications for the ISI Web of
Science database. Combining all four terms produced no publications in any of the three databases.
These findings should be interpreted with caution as a result of the limitations in the methodology
used in the analyses. First, only books and peer reviews journal articles were included in the analyses. If
technical reports, conference proceedings, and other types of publications were included, the proportion
of documents that combined all four terms might have increased. Second, only publications written in
English were analyzed. It may be that publications in other languages that represent countries with a
strong policy emphasis on cost in relation to career guidance interventions might have produced different
results.
Several factors may account for the lack of integration among career theory, public policy, and
the costs of career guidance interventions. One factor might be a lack of interaction and shared experience
between the two groups: 1) career theorists and researchers, and 2) career guidance practitioners and
managers. The nature of work differs between the two groups and influences the focus of their concerns
and interests. These differences are evident in their respective use of language. Jepsen (1996) observed
that theorists use more conceptual and research terminology, while practitioners are more concerned with
language related to problems, information, and interpretations. Both groups have made unique and
important contributions. However, their apparent lack of substantive interaction may limit the
effectiveness of theory-based career interventions.
Another factor may be that the integration of career theory, policy, and costs is occurring but the
information is not disseminated in a way that can be easily located by other professionals. For example,
Magnusson and Lalande (2005) reported that data do exist on the outcomes of career guidance
interventions are not readily available. Publications that are indexed into one of the major research
databases have a crucial advantage of being relatively easy to identify by content and in many cases easy
to retrieve as well. One journal reviewer has suggested that cost-effectiveness studies do not make a type
of contribution to the literature that warrants publication in a refereed journal (Sampson, in press).
Unfortunately, the academic quality control afforded by refereed publications may be lost for documents
analyzing cost-effectiveness that are published in other ways.
Improving the Integration of Career Theory, Public Policy, and the Costs of Interventions
One strategy for improving the contribution that career theory makes to cost-effective practice is
to increase collaboration among theorists, practitioners, and researchers in the ongoing development of
theory (Herr, 1996; Jepsen, 1996). Increased collaboration is needed in several areas. First, intervention
outcomes predicted by career theory may vary by client population and setting. Establishing which career
guidance interventions work best with specific types of populations is an important priority (Sampson, in
press; Savickas, 1989). Differences in needs, circumstances, and readiness for career decision making can
make a specific career intervention effective for one individual and ineffective for another. Second,
problems have been noted when western career theories and techniques are applied to populations with
differing values and cultural norms (Arthur, 2005). Collaboration with practitioners serving persons in
these cultures can help theorists refine or adapt their theories and techniques to be more effective in more
places. Third, collaboration provides opportunities for pilot testing theory-based assessment and
information resources, including evaluating the effectiveness of the language used to explain the theory
directly to the persons being served. Fourth, practitioner training resources can be pilot tested with
practitioners in different types of organizations. Fifth, collaboration in developing and using various
theory-based quantitative and qualitative outcome measures can assist in developing much needed
evidence-based practice. Sixth, career theory has been more strongly influenced by the discipline of
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Translating Career Theory to Practice
psychology than the disciplines of sociology and economics. Including theorists and researchers from
sociology and economics into this collaboration may suggest helpful concepts and applications that would
have otherwise been missed. Finally, good theory evolves over time in an iterative process, using both
deductive and inductive methods. Ongoing collaboration among theorists, practitioners, and researchers
provides opportunities for the refinement and improvement of career theory. The above collaboration
among career theorists, researchers, practitioners, and managers can help to keep theory-based career
guidance interventions firmly grounded in practice. The responsiveness of career theorists to the concerns
of practitioners, managers, and policy makers also increases the chances that theory-based interventions
will be effectively used.
Another strategy for dealing with lack of integration of career theory, public policy, and costeffectiveness is to use the professional expertise that exists in current policy networks. Organizations
focusing on public policy in career guidance, such as the European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network
(http://ktl.jyu.fi/ktl/elgpn) (Vuorinen, 2008), the International Centre for Career Development and Public
Policy (http://www.iccdpp.org/Home/tabid/54/Default.aspx), and the International Centre for Career
Development and Public Policy
(http://www.iccdpp.org/Portals/1/Documents/PolicyPoints/POLICY.POINTS.07.pdf), would provide an
immediate opportunity for examining the translation of career theory to practice, including issues of
effectiveness, access, and social justice. Improvements in the translation of career theory to practice in a
socially responsible manner will require broad participation of career theorists, researchers, practitioners,
managers, stakeholders, social partners, and policy makers.
Access to Career Guidance Interventions
Career guidance interventions must be accessible if they are to be helpful to the persons who need
assistance in making career choices. Along with user-friendliness, confidentiality, impartiality, and
equality of opportunity, accessibility is one of the key principles of guidance (Hughes, Bosley, Bowes, &
Bysshe, 2002). This section explores the potential impact that career theory can have on access to
interventions. The section begins with an examination of access to career guidance interventions as a
social justice issue and continues with a discussion of factors that may limit access, and then presents
strategies for improving access. The section ends with a discussion of the use of differentiated career
interventions to improve access to career guidance interventions.
Access to Career Guidance Intervention and Issues of Social Justice
Theorists, practitioners, and researchers in career guidance have been committed to social justice
for a long time. Social activism and social justice were foundational elements of career guidance in the
United States at the beginning of the 20th century. Frank Parsons, one of the founders of career guidance
in the United States, was an important leader in the social reform movement of his time (Blustein, 2006;
Gummere, 1988; Savickas, 2002).
A key aspect of social justice is the equitable distribution of resources (Arthur, 2006; Bell, 1997;
Leong & Leach, 2007; Speight & Vera, 2008). Equity in access to occupational, educational, training, and
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Translating Career Theory to Practice
employment opportunities is essential in a socially just society. Given the role that career guidance plays
in helping persons make informed and careful choices about their opportunities, equity in access to career
guidance is also a social justice issue.
Factors that may Limit Access to Career Guidance
Arthur, Collins, McMahon, and Marshall (2009) stress the need to examine career theories and
interventions to ensure that the needs of chronically underserved and neglected populations are addressed.
One aspect of theory-based career interventions that may be problematic is how the cost of theory impacts
access to career interventions for all persons, including chronically underserved and neglected
populations. Practitioner views on the importance of advocacy in their work and access to career guidance
resources on the Internet can also be potential problems.
The Cost of Applying Career Theory to Practice
Career theory influences the cost of delivering career guidance interventions. Two key cost
factors are the nature of the interventions provided and the nature of the practitioners providing the
interventions.
The nature of career guidance interventions. Career theory can be used to design a wide variety
of career guidance interventions, such as individual counseling, group counseling, brief counseling, career
courses, workshops, and self-help resources. However, in practice many career theories are applied most
often in individual counseling interventions. Evidence for this can be seen in the case studies used to
show how theories are translated into practice. The vast majority of these case studies depict individual
counseling. Also, the course content and supervised experiences of practitioner-preparation programs
emphasize individual counseling, with some attention to group counseling, and little emphasis on
designing and delivering other types of interventions. Theorists and practitioners have not always applied
their theories to the full range of intervention options available.
Career theory is created and is best applied in a cultural context. As stated previously, the
appropriateness of western career theories and techniques has been questioned when they are applied to
populations with differing values and cultural norms (Arthur, 2005). Western culture may exert a limiting
effect on the nature of career guidance interventions, as well as limiting the view of vocational behavior.
The preference for individual counseling may be as influenced by the individualistic nature of western
culture as any other factor, with the exception of tradition. It may be that practitioners prefer delivering
individual counseling because it fits their general cultural worldview that successful action is more
individual than collective.
Career guidance interventions offered on a one-to-one basis are simply more expensive and
increasingly difficult to justify. Niles and Harris-Bowlsbey (2005, p. 256) stated that, “The goal of career
guidance services should be to provide the maximum benefits to students and clients at the lowest perperson cost. Clearly, given the workload and time constraints of counselors in schools and other settings,
the goal should be to save one-to-one time for the persons that need such specialized service while
providing service to most students through a variety of methods.” As practitioners are pressed for both
time and resources to meet increased demand for services, the need for interventions that are accessible
and affordable is extremely important (Severy, 2008, p. 271). The pressure to serve increasing numbers of
clients with traditional one-one-one career guidance interventions without any additional resources can
lead to ethical problems, such as serving as many clients as possible to meet mandated delivery targets
without providing a level of assistance that clients actually need (Duggan & Jurgens, 2007). Holland
(1996) noted that many career guidance practitioners delivered only one-to-one counseling interventions
as opposed to utilizing a variety of interventions. While acknowledging the effectiveness of one-to-one
interventions, he observed that, “educational and group methods are the only way we will be able to fill
the need for service in middle- and low income groups” (p. 3). Direct services, other than therapy, such as
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Translating Career Theory to Practice
psychoeducational interventions, should also be a priority for multiculturally competent practitioners
engaged in practice from a social justice perspective (Vera & Speight, 2003).
The nature of practitioners providing career guidance interventions. A wide variety of
practitioners deliver career guidance interventions. Some practitioners are guidance specialists, while
others have a primary occupational identity as a teacher, psychologist, counselor, human resource
specialist, employment officer, or labour-market analyst (OECD, 2004). Considerable variation also
exists in the training and supervised experience of these practitioners; ranging from those who have
graduate degrees and specialist diplomas to persons with little formal training.
Some career theory is written in a way that makes it difficult to use for practitioners with limited
training and education. Herr (1996) noted that the abstract language used by theorists in describing their
work has made it difficult for practitioners to translate theory into practice. Jepsen (1996) made a similar
observation when he noted that theorists used more conceptual and research terminology in their writing.
Much of the existing theory literature is written in a way that requires considerable verbal ability and
background knowledge to understand, which makes the information less accessible to the wide range of
practitioners delivering career interventions. (It is important here not to assume that persons without
advanced qualifications do not have the verbal ability necessary to read the existing literature.) Effective
and easy to understand training materials may exist, but they are not likely readily accessible in the
professional literature because they are perceived as not making a unique contribution to behavioral
science or because the materials are not commercially viable enough to be published.
The high level of verbal abstraction in the career theory literature and a possible lack of easily
consumable training resources can lead to three potentially negative consequences. First, the positive
impact of the theory is reduced because only a small number of highly qualified practitioners are
competent to use it. This can create a substantial missed opportunity to improve the practice. Second, by
promoting complex theory, the assumption could be made that a high level of academic training is
necessary to deliver effective career guidance when there is no conclusive data to support this assumption.
Requiring a high level of qualification can be especially problematic in developing countries, where
participation in higher education is low, resulting in limited availability of practitioners at a time when
there is a strong social and economic need for career guidance. Third, the salaries of practitioners with
graduate degrees and specialist diplomas are often higher than the salaries of practitioners with less (or
no) formal training. As salaries increase, fewer practitioners can be hired and as a result fewer persons
can be served. This has direct implications for increasing the costs of career guidance interventions.
Practitioner Views on the Importance of Advocacy in Their Work
A key tenant of social justice in counseling is advocacy. The question is advocacy for whom:
clients or citizens? “Who are we responsible for as career practitioners? Are we responsible only for the
clients who come through our door, or are we responsible for the citizens in our society who need help
with career choices?” (Sampson, in press, p. 4). If the view of the practitioner is to provide a high quality
of service to the clients who seek their help, then using individual counseling as the primary mode of
service delivery makes sense. However, if the view of the practitioner also includes being an advocate for
citizens who need career guidance in their communities, then using individual counseling as the primary
mode of service delivery is incongruent with social justice concerns for equality of access to services.
Practitioners need to examine how their work can inadvertently support the status quo (Arthur,
2005). Given the responsibility practitioners have to engage in social action (Hiebert, 2006) and address
inequity in society (Blustein, McWhirter, & Perry, 2005), counselors need to be proactive in institutions
that have practices that may not meet the needs of diverse constituencies (Arredondo, 1999), including
working to change organizational practices and policies (Arthur, 2005). This proactive role would include
challenging the dominance of costly individual counseling interventions when large numbers of
individuals need career guidance.
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Translating Career Theory to Practice
Access to the Internet
The Internet has provided unparalleled access to career guidance. A wide variety of career
resources and interventions can be delivered on the Internet (OECD and the European Commission, 2004;
Sampson, 1998; Sampson & Bloom, 2001; Watts & Dent, 2007). The anonymity and convenience
provided by the Internet may encourage some persons to obtain resources and services who have been
reluctant to seek assistance in the past. Persons who have difficulty accessing career guidance because of
a disability that reduces their mobility can use the Internet to interact with a counselor and obtain
resources. The same advantages would exist for persons living in a geographically remote area who have
difficulty accessing services, or persons who seek access to practitioners in other geographic locations
having the specialized expertise they need (Sampson, 2008; Sampson & Bloom, 2001).
However, it is inappropriate to assume that access to the Internet is universal (European Centre
for the Development of Vocational Training, 2009). The use of the Internet to provide career guidance
interventions and resources can create access problems for some groups in society that are already at risk
of social exclusion. The situation where some persons have restricted access to the Internet because of
their limited financial resources continues to raise important ethical and social justice concerns (Sampson
& Bloom, 2001; Sampson & Pyle, 1983). Limited reading literacy, computer literacy, and language skills
can also limit the access that some persons have to career guidance resources on the Internet. As a result
of these barriers, it is inappropriate to assume that all resources and services can be delivered over the
Internet.
Using Differentiated Career Guidance Interventions to Improve Access
The series of meta-analyses of career guidance outcome studies identified earlier showed modest,
but positive outcomes for persons receiving career guidance interventions for assistance with career
choices. However, the uniformity of how interventions were provided in these studies showed an
assumption that all clients were developmentally undecided, as opposed to indecisive, and had similar
goals (Brown & McPartland, 2005; Miller & Brown, 2005; Whiston & Rahardia, 2008). Numerous
studies have shown that persons vary in their readiness for career choice (Brown & Rector, 2009; Miller
& Brown, 2005; Sampson, Peterson, Reardon, & Lenz, 2000). Existing career intervention outcome
studies have not generally examined the relative effectiveness of interventions for persons with varying
levels of readiness for career choice (Whiston & Tai, 2006). It is very likely that the effectiveness of
career guidance interventions would be improved if the amount and nature of assistance provided by
practitioners was congruent with clients’ readiness for decision making.
Persons who show higher levels of readiness for career choice are better prepared to benefit from
career guidance interventions with limited assistance, while persons who show lower levels of readiness
are less ready to benefit from a career intervention without assistance from a practitioner (Sampson,
2008). A variety of constructs can be used to identify readiness for career choice. Constructs and related
measures of readiness for career choice are either theoretical, such as career beliefs (Krumboltz, 1991),
career thoughts (Sampson, Peterson, Lenz, Reardon, & Saunders, 1996a; 1996b), and vocational identity
(Holland, Daiger, & Power, 1980), or empirical, such as career decidedness (Jones, 1989; Osipow,
Carney, Winer, Yanico, & Koschier, 1987).
Differentiated service delivery can maximize the cost-effectiveness of career guidance
interventions by limiting the provision of individualized interventions over multiple sessions to persons
with low readiness for career choice that would not likely benefit from brief or self-help interventions.
Persons with moderate to high readiness for decision making can be cost-effectively served by brief or
self-help interventions (Sampson, 2008; Sampson, Reardon, Peterson, & Lenz, 2004). The limited
evidence of effectiveness for self-help use of computer-assisted career guidance interventions (Miller &
Brown, 2005) is very likely due to persons with low to moderate readiness not having the practitioner
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Translating Career Theory to Practice
assistance they needed to make effective use of the system. When practitioner assistance was provided,
the effectiveness of the intervention improved considerably (Miller & Brown, 2005).
One-to-one counseling still has a vital role to play in delivering effective career guidance for
persons with very low readiness for career decision making. Individual counseling may be the dominant
mode of service delivery for persons who are chronically undecided or indecisive, as opposed to being
developmentally undecided (Foley, Kelly, & Hartman, 2006). Effective lifelong guidance systems should
“provide access to individual guidance by appropriately trained and qualified practitioners for those who
need such help, at times when they need it” (OECD, 2004, p. 26) For individual counseling to be
maximally cost-effective we need to examine which clients need individual career counseling (Whiston,
Sexton, & Lasoff, 1998). In other words, which clients would not be able to make an informed and careful
career choice without individualized assistance from a counselor?
It is not possible to deliver effective differentiated services without a robust self-help career
guidance provision. Watts (2005) observed that it is becoming increasingly common for a variety of selfhelp information resources to be available in an open access area with clear signposting to locate needed
resources, with specialist practitioners available for brief support or longer counseling interviews as
needed. Diagnostic help provided on reception can help individuals and practitioners decide whether a
self-help approach, brief staff assistance, or more intensive help is needed (Watts, 2005). Persons using
Internet Web sites to obtain career resources on a self-help basis sometimes have the option to access
distance counseling as needed. As part of the distance counseling process, Web-site users can be referred
to local service providers when appropriate (Watts & Dent, 2007).
The use of a differentiated service delivery model was a key aspect in the redesign of career
services in several countries. Career services in the United States (Sampson, 2008), England (Hughes,
Morgan, Watts, Hartas, Merton, & Ford, 2000), Scotland (Fairweather, Govan, & McGlynn, 2006), and
Northern Ireland (Department for Employment & Learning and the Department of Education, 2008) have
adapted various aspects of the CIP approach (Peterson, Sampson, Reardon, & Lenz, 2002; Sampson,
Palmer, & Watts, 1999; Sampson, Reardon, Peterson, & Lenz, 2004) in their service redesign. The goal in
each case was to improve cost-effectiveness by using staff with varying amounts of training and
experience to deliver a combination of self-help, brief staff-assisted, and individual case managed
services that were appropriate for identified client needs. Designing career services on a country-wide
basis can allow economies of scale by avoiding duplicated effort in developing career resources for
clients, creating and delivering training for staff, and designing and maintaining Web-sites.
The design and implementation of differentiated service delivery models requires time and
financial resources. Most of the funding for career guidance interventions is provided by governments
(Watts, 1996). It is essential that career service managers and practitioners be able to relate the funding
they require to the needs of policy makers to provide a broad range of career services to meet the diverse
needs of individuals at a time when financial resources are constrained. If career guidance practitioners
are to obtain financial support, they must learn to communicate in policy terms and address the concerns
of policy makers (Watts, 2005). The chance of obtaining funding to design and deliver differentiated
career guidance is improved when interventions can be linked to policy concerns. For example, helping
policy makers understand how readiness for career decision making relates to student retention in higher
education in order to develop differential career interventions (Lerkkanen, 2002).
Using Collaborative Career Counseling to Improve Access to Career Guidance Interventions
Given the need for more cost-effective career guidance interventions, career theorists,
researchers, practitioners, and managers need to work together to refine existing interventions, and to
create additional interventions to provide individuals with ready access to resources and services. One
option is to integrate existing career theory and counseling theory, along with research on collaborative
learning, to develop collaborative career counseling as an additional career intervention. In collaborative
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Translating Career Theory to Practice
career counseling, a counselor simultaneously assists two individuals in a way that takes advantage of a
preexisting functional social relationship and of the benefits of collaborative learning to facilitate the
informed and careful career choices of each person. Interaction between clients can occur while career
resources are being used, as well as during counseling sessions. Interaction can be face-to-face or at a
distance over the Internet. The two individuals may or may not have a similar career opportunity or
problem, and the people may or may not be related. The assessment and information resources available
to clients using this approach are the same as those used in other career guidance interventions.
Determining the Appropriateness of Collaborative Counseling
Because of its social nature, some individuals are more likely than others to benefit from
collaborative counseling than others. For this type of intervention, it is especially important that the
clients involved have enough shared life experience to ask each other relevant questions, make relevant
observations, and provide meaningful feedback on the other person’s perceptions and potential plans.
They need to have adequate listening and communication skills. They also need to be capable of helping
the other person while they themselves are engaged in making a career choice. In terms of the
relationship, individuals need to be reasonably accepting of each other and trust that each other will be
honest in providing feedback, be willing to maintain a level of confidentiality appropriate for the content
of the discussion, and be willing to point out discrepancies among the other person’s thoughts, feelings,
and behavior if these become apparent.
For their part, counselors need to be able to model effective communication and relationship
skills, and to identify any communication or relationship problems the individuals might have that could
comprise counseling effectiveness and then intervene to resolve the problems, or make a referral if
necessary. Examples of relationship problems include over-functioning or treating the other person in a
demeaning or aggressive manner. Over functioning by one individual in a relationship may lead to
reduced career search self-efficacy beliefs. Career search self-efficacy refers to the degree of confidence
individuals have that they can succeed at various career exploration activities, such as self-exploration of
values and interests, networking with professionals in a particular field of interest, and successfully
interviewing for employment (Solberg, Good, Fischer, Brown, & Nord, 1995). Treating someone in a
demeaning or aggressive manner may lead to reduced career self-efficacy beliefs and outcome
expectations. Career self-efficacy beliefs concern an individual’s perceived capabilities related to
performance while outcome expectations concern imagined consequences of performing (Lent, Brown, &
Hackett, 2002). A relationship between individuals that is characterized by over functioning or demeaning
and aggressive verbal interactions would make collaborative career counseling an inappropriate
intervention (unless counseling was expanded to include mental health issues).
Collaborative Learning
Social interaction is a key element of the collaborative learning process. Collaborative learning is
a naturally occurring social act where learning occurs through conversation (Gerlach, 1994). The process
of collaborative learning requires the active involvement of the learner. Active involvement in learning
has been shown to be more effective than passively receiving information (Matthews, Cooper, Davidson,
& Hawkes, 1995). Evidence shows that collaborative learning has a positive impact on learning
outcomes. Students have been shown to perform better when collaborating than when working
individually. This type of learning also contributes to improved problem solving ability as individuals are
exposed to differing interpretations of a similar situation (Gokhale, 1995). Students with prior
collaborative learning experience showed more evidence of planning and problem solving skills than
students who had worked alone (Blaye, Light, Joiner, & Sheldon, 1991). The tendency to self-critique and
reflect, occurred four times more often during collaborative learning than when individuals learned alone
(Miyake, 1986). The capacity to reflect and gain insight is an important aspect of clarifying selfknowledge in making choices, including career choices.
12
Translating Career Theory to Practice
Potential Client Outcomes
Combining a preexisting relationship with collaborative learning could lead to several potential
career decision-making outcomes for clients. Discussing career assessment results provides an
opportunity for clients to compare their assessment results with their perceptions of each other based on
their shared life experiences. Examining career information together may help clients generate career
options that might not have been considered otherwise, as well as providing an opportunity to mutually
share their perceptions of the potential appropriateness of an occupation, education or training experience,
or employment opportunity. Learning a common decision-making strategy can provide a schema for
helping them monitor their progress in making a choice; including providing them with a way of talking
about the barriers they are facing in reaching their goals. The social interaction inherent in collaborative
learning can also provide emotional support during the implementation of a career choice. It can also
provide a sense of mutual accountability in following through on a decision. For clients with similar
characteristics, collaboration may facilitate insight about shared multicultural issues related to career
choice.
Potential Societal Outcomes
Collaborative career counseling allows more individuals to be served by a single practitioner,
which reduces the cost of service delivery per individual and allows more persons to be helped, which is a
key concern of policy makers and managers. This intervention can be used in both brief counseling and
longer-term counseling. Regardless of the number of sessions, serving two individuals at one time
reduces costs. Also, this approach may increase public access to career guidance interventions by
attracting individuals who might not otherwise seek assistance without the security of being able to
receive services with a person they know. The availability of brief career guidance interventions in a
welcoming career center resource room may encourage individuals to seek help with someone they know.
Reardon (1996, p. 285) noted that “the informal, relaxed, nonclinical nature of the self-directed approach
seems to attract shy, timid clients, who sometimes bring a friend and work through the career
interventions together” (p. 285).
Ethical Issues
Collaborative career counseling can be delivered with the same attention to ethical issues as other
types of career guidance interventions. Confidentiality between individuals is less likely to be a problem
because the clients sought assistance knowing that each of them will share information that is personal in
nature. However, the importance and limits of confidentiality need to be discussed at the beginning of
service delivery as in other forms of counseling. It is important to ensure that clients are aware of the
particular benefits and limitations of this approach to counseling. Having the counselor identify and deal
with any communication or relationship issues that are compromising collaboration between the
individuals helps to resolve a problem that would be somewhat unique to collaborative counseling.
Individuals would also need to be briefly screened or review appropriate information to be reasonably
sure that they capable of benefiting from this type of collaborative intervention.
Future Development of Collaborative Counseling
Collaborative learning already exists among individuals seeking services in centers where career
information resources are available on a self-help basis. The pressing need for more cost-effective career
guidance interventions and the availability of self-help resources increases the opportunities for
individuals to collaborate. Collaboration among individuals seeking career services should not be limited
to only collaborative career counseling. Options for facilitating collaborative learning need to be explored
for brief interventions, including career courses and workshops. The use of collaborative learning
strategies should also be explored for self-help interventions provided face-to-face or on Web sites.
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Translating Career Theory to Practice
The potential advantages of collaborative learning, and the fact that it already occurs in some
settings, provides a compelling rationale for investing the time necessary to create and validate theorybased approaches to collaborative career counseling. An initial step would be to integrate models of
collaborative learning with relevant elements of individual, group, and family counseling strategies, and
various career theories, taking into account any multicultural, cognitive, affective, or social factors likely
to impact collaboration. Examination of strategies for group career counseling (Pyle, 2007) might also
helpful in further developing this approach.
Balancing Effectiveness and Access in Delivering Career Guidance Interventions
A fundamental aim of public policy in career guidance is to ensure that effective services are
readily accessible to the people who need it at various points over their lifetime. A fundamental constraint
is that the public funding that supports the provision of career guidance is increasingly limited as
population growth and demographics place greater and greater demands on government resources. Caught
between aims and constraints, policy makers struggle to fund career guidance interventions and resources
that are effective enough to be consistently helpful, while also having a low enough average cost per
person to ensure that young people and adults have reasonable access to the career guidance interventions
they need. Highly effective guidance services that are very helpful, but accessible to only a privileged
few, are no better for society than poor quality services that are readily available, but not very helpful to
anyone.
A seemingly simple solution for improving access to career guidance while also maintaining
effectiveness is to multiply the per-client cost for services by the number of new clients to be served, and
then increase funding proportionately to add the staff and facilities needed to serve more persons.
However, there are two problems with this approach. The first problem is that the demand for public
services and education is increasing faster than public tax revenues. It is unrealistic to expect anything
more than a small increase in funding for career guidance no matter how articulate the case is for more
resources. The second problem is that the need for additional funding is based on the assumption that
more practitioners are needed if more services are to be delivered. This assumption is in turn based on an
additional assumption that any change in the current delivery of services will result in an unacceptable
reduction in the effectiveness of service provision, as less individualized time is spent on serving each
person. These two assumptions can no longer be supported.
The OECD (2004) noted that “countries need to greatly expand access to career guidance so that
it is available to people throughout their lives, and so that it can be available not just to selected groups
such as school students or the unemployed, but to all. If this changed emphasis and expanded access were
to be achieved solely through the traditional way in which career guidance is provided – face-to-face
interviews – there would inevitably be a substantial increase in costs. Both to minimise cost increases, and
to meet the needs of a greatly expanded and more diverse range of clients, career guidance needs to be
made available much more flexibly in time and space, and to adopt a wider range of delivery methods”
(p.24).
Our task as a profession is to deliver effective career guidance that is readily accessible in a
manner that promotes social justice for all. This may mean that not all people receive the one-to-one time
intensive attention that they would prefer or that practitioners may want to deliver. Given the limited
public funding available and the increasing demand for career guidance, public policy should focus on
delivering the career guidance that persons need, as opposed to the services persons want or the services
practitioners want to provide. Our concern for social justice issues needs to begin with examining the
social justice impact of the career guidance interventions that we deliver to our citizens. It is imperative
that the cost-effectiveness of theory-based career interventions be maximized to ensure that citizens’
needs are met, and to ensure that policy makers understand the value of career guidance and continue to
provide the funds needed to deliver career interventions. Access to career services should not be restricted
by the theoretical bases of our career guidance interventions. If we fail in this regard, we will
14
Translating Career Theory to Practice
inadvertently perpetuate social injustice. In other words, we will be contributing to the very problems we
are trying to rectify and prevent.
This conference provides an excellent opportunity to consider issues of effectiveness and access
in relation to social justice. As you attend conference sessions dealing with the delivery of career
guidance interventions, consider the following questions:

Is there a theory evident that provides a foundation for practice?

Does the description or discussion of the career intervention include consideration of costs
relative to the number of persons who can be served?

Is there any evidence base for the cost-effectiveness of the career intervention?

If the career intervention uses individual counseling, can it be adapted for other types of service
delivery?

Does the intervention increase or decrease access to career guidance?

What type of practitioner training and experience would be required to use the intervention in
practice?

Could the intervention described be adapted for delivery by practitioners with minimal training,
or could it be adapted for self-help use?

Are there any cultural or national issues that would impact using the intervention in your country?

Are diversity and social justice addressed in discussions of how theory is translated to practice?

Finally, if the Minister of Education and the Minister of Labor of your country were attending the
session along with you, would they be persuaded that the career intervention being described was
worth funding with the limited amount of public funds they have available?
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