WORK-VALUE CLARIFICATION AND COGNITIVE INFORMATION PROCESSING THERAPIES IN THE MANAGEMENT OF CAREER DECISION-MAKING DIFFICULTY OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN OSUN STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Career decision-making difficulty is the inability of secondary school students to make correct career decision. Studies have shown that the problem of career decision-making of secondary school students in Osun State, Nigeria is on the increase, which could lead to wrong choice of school subjects and career frustration. Previous studies on career decision-making difficulty have focused largely on emotional intelligence, academic motivation and occupational preferences with little attention paid to interventions such as Work-value Clarification and Cognitive Information Processing Therapy. This study, therefore, was carried out to determine the effects of Work-value Clarification and Cognitive Information Processing Therapies in the management of Career decision-making difficulty of secondary school students in Osun State, Nigeria. The moderating effects of Career self-efficacy and gender were also examined. The study was anchored to Miller-Tiedeman’s Life Career Theory, while the pretest-posttest control group quasi‑experimental design with a 3x2x2 factorial matrix was adopted. The multistage procedure was used. Simple random sampling technique was used to select three local government areas (Ayedaade, Isokan and Ede) in Osun State. Simple random sampling technique was used to select one senior secondary school from each of the selected local government area. The participants who scored high on Germeijs and Boecks’ indecisiveness scale as against the threshold of 50 were selected. The schools were randomly assigned to Work-value clarification Therapy (40), Cognitive Information Processing Therapy (40) and Control (40) groups. The instruments used were career decision-making difficulty (α=.78) and career self-efficacy (α=.87) scales. The treatments lasted eight weeks. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Analysis of covariance and Scheffe post-hoc test at .05 level of significance. Participants’ age were 15.36 + 3.51 years, and 54.2% were females. There was a significant main effect of treatments in the career decision-making difficulty of the senior secondary school (F_(2;119)=9.26, partial η²=.15). The participants in the Cognitive Information Processing Therapy ( =134.97) improved on their career decision-making difficulty better than those in the Work-value clarification Therapy (=135.25) and the control (=152.55) groups. Work-value clarification and Cognitive information processing therapies were effective in the management of career decision-making difficulty of secondary school students in Osun State, Nigeria, regardless of gender. Counselling and educational psychologists should utilise these interventions to manage career decision-making difficulty.

Keywords: Work-value clarification, cognitive information processing therapies, career decision-making difficulty, secondary school students.

REFERENCES

Abesha, A. G. (2012). Effects of parenting styles, academic self-efficacy, and achievement motivation on the academic achievement of university students in Ethiopia (Unpublished doctoral thesis). Edith Cowan University.

Adeyemo, D.  A. (2005). Parental involvement, interest in schooling and school environment as predictors of academic self-efficacy among fresh secondary school student in Oyo State, Nigeria.  Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology, 5(3), 163-180.

Agbaje, A. A., & Agbaje A. O. (2014). Understanding problems of vocational counselling information seeking behaviour in the modern Nigeria. Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 19(5), 50-57.

Akpochafo, G. O. (2020). Career decision-making difficulty among secondary school students in Nigeria. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 8(11B), 5918 - 5925.

Akpochafo, G. O. (2011). Emotional Intelligence and Self-Efficiency as correlates of Career commitment in Nigeria, African Research Reviews, 5(1), 212-225

Amir, T., & Gati, I. (2006). Facets of career decision-making difficulties. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 34(4), 483-503.

Arif, S., Iqbal, J., & Khalil, U. (2019). Factors influencing students' choices of academic career in Pakistan. FWU Journal of Social Sciences, 13(1), 12-20.

Arif, S., Ejaz, A., & Yousaf,  N. (2017). Career aspirations and opportunity for FWAs: Perceptions of Pakistani Women.  Journal of Management and Research, 4(1), 1-28.

Baruch, Y., Szűcs, N., & Gunz, H. (2015). Career studies in search of theory: The rise and rise of concepts. The Career Development International, 20(1), 3-20.

Betz, M.E., & Hackett, G. (2009). The relationship of career-related self-efficacy expectations to perceived career options in college women and men. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 28(5), 399-410.

Betz, N. E.  Klein, K., & Taylor, K. M. (1996). Evaluation of a short form of the career decision-making self-efficacy scale. Journal of Career Assessment, (4), 47-57.

Bounds, P. S. R. (2013). Examining the relationship between career decision self-efficacy, ethnic identity, and academic self-concept and achievement of African American high school students [University of Iowa]. https://doi.org/10.17077/etd.lav4h3g0

Brown, S. D., & Krane, N. E. R. (2000). Four (or five) sessions and a cloud of dust: Old assumptions and new observations about career counseling. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Handbook of Counseling Psychology (pp. 740–766). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Bravo-Baumann, H. (2000). Livestock and gender: A winning pair, working document, swiss agency for development and cooperation bern. www.siyanda.org/docs_genie/sdc/Gender_and_Livestock.doc.

Briska, L., & Dislere, V. (2018). Guidance model for promoting self-directed career decision-making by secondary school students. In V. Dislere (Ed.), The Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference Rural Environment. Education. Personality (REEP), 11.Jelgava: LLU TF, 344-350.

Brown, C., George-Curran, R. & Smith, M. L. (2003). The role of emotional intelligence in the career commitment and decision-making process. Journal of Career Assessment, 11(4), 379-392.

Chung, T. J. (2002). Computational fluid dynamics. Cambridge University Press, 1012 pp. ISBN 0 521 59416

Cook, A., & Maree, J. G. (2016). Efficacy of using career and self-construction to help learners manage career-related transitions. South African Journal of Education, 36, 1-11.

Creed, P. A., Patton, W., & Prideaux, L. A. (2006). Causal relationship between career indecision and career decision-making self-efficacy: A longitudinal cross-lagged analysis. Journal of Career Development, 33(1), 47-65.

Creed, P. A., Patton, W., & Bartrum, D. (2004). Internal and external barriers, cognitive style, and the career development variables of focus and indecision. Journal of Career Development, 30(4), 277-294.

Crisan, C., & Sebastian T. (2015). The connection between the level of career indecision and the perceived self-efficacy on career decision-making among teenagers. Social and Behavioural-Sciences, 209, 154-160.

Di Fabio, A., & Kenny, M. E. (2011). Promoting emotional intelligence and career decision making among italian high school students. Journal of Career Assessment, 19(1), 21–34.

Ebenehi, A. S., Rashid, A. M., & Bakar, A. (2016). Predictors of career adaptability skill among higher education students in Nigeria. International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training (IJRVET), 3(3), 212-229.

Ellis, N. (2006). Cognitive perspectives on SLA: The associative-cognitive CREED. AILA Review, 19(1), 100-121.

Eremie, M. D., & Ibifari, B.  (2018). Factors influencing students’ career choice in secondary schools in Rivers State: Implication for career counselling.  International Journal of Innovative Education Research, 6(4), 93-100.

Fizer, D. (2013). Factors Affecting Career Choices of College Students Enrolled in Agriculture (Unpublished master's thesis). USA: University of Tennessee.

Fouad, N. A., & Byars‐Winston, A. M. (2005). Cultural context of career choice: Meta‐analysis of race/ethnicity differences. The Career Development Quarterly, 53(3), 223-233.

Fouad, N. A., Smith, P. L., & Enochs, L. (1997). Reliability and validity evidence for the middle school self-efficacy scale. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 30, 17–31.

Gati, I., Krausz, M., & Osipow, S. H. (1996). A taxonomy of difficulties in career decision making. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 43(4), 510–526.

Germeijs, V., & Boeck, P. D. (2002). A measurement scale for indecisiveness and its relationship to career indecision and other types of indecision. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 18(2), 113-122.

Joshua, Z. D., Terungwa, A. S., & Saanyol, D. B. (2018). Correlates of career choice among senior secondary school students in Tarka LGA of Benue State, Nigeria. International Journal of Education and Evaluation, 4(8), 53-66.

Julius, K., Jacob, B., Daniel, R., Samson, K., Joseph, O. O., Betty, K., & Hassan, N. (2016). Factors influencing career choices among undergraduate students in public Universities in Kenya: A case study of University of Eldoret. International Journal of Contemporary Applied Sciences, 3(2), 51-6318.

Kazi, A. S., & Akhlaq, A. (2017). Factors affecting students’ career choice. Journal of Research and Reflections in Education, 2, 187-196.

Kshetrimayum, B. D. (2018). Preparing for career in adolescence. Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 23(12), 2279-2845.

Kuzgun, Y. (2000). Theories and Practice in Career Counseling. Ankara, Turkey: Nobel Yayin Dagitim

Lam, M. C. (2016). Effects of a career course on students’ career decision-making self-efficacy, indecision and difficulties (Unpublished PhD Thesis). University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus.

Lauren, K. O. (2014). Using a cognitive information processing approach to group career counselling with visually impaired veterans. The Professional Counsellor Volume, 4(2), 150–158.

Mashige, K. P., & Oduntan, O. A. (2011). Factors influencing South African optometry students in choosing their career and institution of learning. African Vision and Eye Health.  South African Optometrist, 70(1), 21-28.

Migunde, Q., Othuon, L., & Mbagaya, L. (2015). Career maturity and career decision making status of secondary school students in Kisumu Municipality, Kenya. Educational Research, 6(3), 50-54.

Mtemeri J. (2017). Variables influencing the choice of career pathways among high school students in Midlands Province, Zimbabwe. http://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/23174/thesis_mtemeri_j.pdf?sequence=1&is

Mabula, N. (2012). Career services provision to secondary school students in Tanzania: is it a dream or reality? International Journal of Learning and Development, 2(2), 242-257.

Ottu, I. F. A., & Idowu, O. O. (2014). Openness to experience, conscientiousness and gender as personality indicators of career maturity of in-school adolescents in Ibadan, Nigeria. European Journal of Educational Studies, 6(1), 1-12.

Salami, K. A. (2001). Basic statistics and data processing in education. In A. Adeyanju, (Ed.), Introduction to educational management (p.155-182) Oyo: Green Light Press & Publisher.

Sampson, J. P., Peterson, J. W., Lenz, J. G., Reardon, R. C., & Saunders, D. E. (1999). A cognitive information processing approach to problem solving and decision making. Career Development Quarterly, 48, 3-18.

Saleem, T., Gul, S., & Aly, M. (2017). Career decision making self-efficacy, goal stability and academic achievement among university students. European Journal of Pharmaceutical & Medical Research, 4(8), 20-25.

Slaten, C. D., & Baskin, T. W. (2014). Examining the impact of peer and family belongingness on the CDMD of young adults: A path analytic approach. Journal of Career Assessment, 22, 59–74.

Yang, L. (2008). The real determinants of asset sales. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.2008.01396.x.