Delivering evidence-based, high quality career services

A presentation to the International Forum on Guidance, Genoa, Italy

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What am I going to say?

Describe the evidence-base that can inform the development and delivery of guidance services. Consider the role that policy makers and practitioners have to enhance that evidence base.

What Im going to say is based strongly on work that I am doing with the European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network.
It is a work in progress. Its failures are mine, not the ELGPNs.

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European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network (ELGPN)

http://ktl.jyu.fi/ktl/elgpn

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Quality and evidence

Quality

Evidence

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The aims of quality assurance

to improve efficiency in service provision to increase institutional financial accountability and to create transparency from the perspective of the citizen.

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The lifelong guidance efficacy cycle

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Measuring impacts

Results Behaviour Learning Reaction

Take-up Inputs
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Does guidance work?

Whiston et al. (1998) identified impacts across all types of career interventions, but found that individual career counselling was much the most effective for the client, whereas computer-based and classroom/group interventions were more costeffective in terms of counsellor time. This paper drew together 47 studies which utilised controls and involved a total of 4,660 participants.

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Does guidance work?

Bimrose et al. (2008) undertook a five year longitudinal tracking study of 50 career guidance clients. These clients initially encountered career guidance in a range of different settings including further education, higher education and public employment services. The study found that one-toone guidance interventions were regarded as useful by clients, and that guidance services can support adults to make successful transitions in a turbulent labour market.

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Does guidance work?

Fostering College and Career Readiness, Hooley, Marriott & Sampson (2011) looked at over 100 studies on careers work in schools. They concluded that across this literature, four main types of impacts were associated with careers work in schools. Where a schools programme was well-run, studies indicate that it would be possible to identify impacts on: the schools retention rate; on the academic attainment of the students; on the ability of students to make successful transitions from school; and on their longer-term life and career success.

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The importance of context

In learning Schools Vocational education Adult education Higher education
For work Worklessness to work Other kinds of return to work Youth transitions to work Guidance in the workplace Older workers

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Messages from the research: Connecting services to the individual

Lifelong guidance is most effective where it is genuinely lifelong and progressive. Guidance should start early and continue throughout life.
Lifelong guidance is most effective where it connects meaningfully to the wider experience and lives of the individuals who participate in it. Lifelong guidance is most effective where it is able to individualise services and to recognise the diversity of individuals.

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Messages from the research: Designing effective services

Lifelong guidance is not one intervention, but many, and works most effectively when a range of interventions are combined. This might include careers education, one-to-one counselling, online services and a range of other possibilities.
A key aim of lifelong guidance programmes should be the development of career management skills. Lifelong guidance needs to be holistic and well-integrated into other support services.

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Messages from the research: Underpinning quality

The skills, training and dispositions of the professionals who deliver lifelong guidance are critical to its success.
This raises a number of key questions: What type and level of training is appropriate? Should it be at graduate/postgraduate level? Should it focus on psychology/counselling, education, labour market etc. Lifelong guidance is dependent on access to good-quality career information. Lifelong guidance should be quality-assured and evaluated to ensure its effectiveness and to support continuous improvement.

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Improving the evidence base

The evidence base needs to be extended. Lots of us are working on this including my organisation (www.derby.ac.uk/icegs) and the ISFOL in Italy.
We particularly need to know more about how guidance works in each of the different contexts rather than in general. The following approaches might be useful: new meta-analyses based on recent research; randomised control trials examining career development interventions; further longitudinal work based on longer time periods than much of the existing research; further studies examining the nature, role and impact of technologicallymediated career development.

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Questions for further thought?

What are the objectives of service evaluation? What kinds of impacts can and should be identified? What should be monitored routinely? How will such monitoring data be used to inform service development? How will practitioners and managers be engaged in understanding, acting and developing the evidence base for the services that they deliver? How will evaluation be used formatively to support service development? How will evaluation be used summatively to explore the impacts of the service and to identify the return on investment? Who will be responsible for conducting the evaluation? What level of resourcing is needed to support both monitoring and evaluation? How will results from the evaluation be published to contribute to the broader evidence base in the field?

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Tristram Hooley
Reader in Career Development International Centre for Guidance Studies University of Derby http://www.derby.ac.uk/icegs t.hooley@derby.ac.uk @pigironjoe
Blog at http://adventuresincareerdevelopment.wordpress.com

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