Building Future Career Development Programs for Adolescents

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Date
2004
Authors
Bernes, Kerry B.
Magnusson, Kris C.
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Abstract
Heuristically, adolescent career development programs may provide significant outcomes on personal, social, economic and national development levels. Unfortunately, however, very little research has been done on what is and what is not working within existing adolescent career development programs. Instead, adults continue to develop multiple resources that lack integration for adolescents, most notably, without the input from the students themselves (Hiebert et al., 2001). Unfortunately, the field appears to suffer from a lack of integration, wherein efficacy data on current programs is generally scarce and significant longitudinal data is absent. Creating a sense of integration, evaluating the results of current career development programs and creating longitudinal studies to gather objective data on the long- term impact of these programs appear to be critical missing ingredients. Without this research, we will never uncover the critical ingredients that are needed to support significant personal, social, economic and national development. Worse yet, the field may continue to go on to develop one product after another until it fragments so significantly that it fails to attract any further resources for development. In other words, the writers believe that too many resources are going into new products without any efficacy data to support them, currently or on a longitudinal basis, and that without some integration and objective support for their use, the field may fail to be financially supported in a future wherein financial resources are allocated upon the basis of results, not heuristic value.
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Permission to include this article granted by NATCON
Keywords
Career development -- Alberta -- Evaluation
Citation
Bernes, K. B., & Magnusson, K. C. (2004). Building Future Career Development Programs for Adolescents. NATCON Papers. http://www.natcon.org
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