Professionalising teachers in career dialogue: an effect study

ABSTRACT

As a result of the changing notions of work, schools are increasingly acknowledging that they have a strong responsibility in guiding students not only in their academic growth, but also in their career development. This paper presents the results of a study about the effects of teacher training on career dialogues promoting career competency development in students. For the quantitative part of the study, a quasi-experimental research design was used to measure effects among 2291 students. Video recordings of conversations were used to do qualitative research. The results show that only when off-the-job training is followed by on-the-job coaching, the professionalising of teachers proves to be effective as measured on student level. Students notice that the guidance conversations are more appreciative, reflective and activating and that they focus more on self-image development, work and career action. The observations made with regard to the guidance conversations also show that these conversations become more career related.

KEYWORDS:

• Professional development
• career education
• teachers

Notes on contributors

Marinka Kuijpers is professor at the Welten Institute of the Open University, the Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]

Frans Meijers is professor at the School of Education, The Hague University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We note that the term ‘counsellor’ slightly differs from country to country. In this article, we make a distinction between ‘guidance counsellors’ (those who are trained as counsellors) and teachers (who may have some counselling training but whose focus is mainly on teaching a subject).