Abstract
There has been an increased attention to childhood career development over the last years, sustaining aneed to deepen the knowledge of childhood career exploration. Such a need is sustained by an integrativeperspective of this construct, which points to its developmental nature, adaptive functions, and implicationsin learning and development. This work intends to identify the assessment forms and contexts of childhoodcareer exploration, considering advantages and limitations. At infancy and early childhood, the assessmenthas relied on observation and checklists procedures focused on exploratory behaviors. At preschool andelementary-school, the use of projective techniques, interviews and guided tasks have assessed children’sinvestigative reasoning, self- and environment-career exploration. At middle-school years, these proceduresare coupled with self-report measures of the frequency of exploratory behaviors, use of exploratory resourcesand attitudes of career adaptability. The assessment of childhood career exploration has progressed fromqualitative to quantitative procedures and from a focus on exploratory behaviors to cognitive and selfreport processes. It is concluded that: (a) one needs to clarify whether career exploration includes or differsfrom curiosity; (b) the rational of the measures needs to be referred and might consider an integrativeperspective of career exploration; (c) the emotional and motivational aspects of career exploration shouldbe taken into account; and (d) the knowledge of middle-school students’ career exploration needs to beimproved, as it mostly relies on the use of measures of career adaptability and is conditioned by difficultiesin the chronological delimitation of childhood and adolescence.
Translated title of the contribution | Assessment of childhood career exploration |
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Original language | Portuguese |
Title of host publication | Atas do IX Congresso Iberoamericano de Psicologia e 2.º Congresso da Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses |
Editors | Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses |
Place of Publication | Lisboa |
Publisher | Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses |
Pages | 1572-1585 |
ISBN (Print) | 9789899903722 |
Publication status | Published - 2014 |
Externally published | Yes |
Event | IX Congresso Iberoamericano de Psicologia/ 2º Congresso da Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses - Lisboa, Portugal Duration: 9 Sept 2014 → 13 Sept 2014 Conference number: 9 |
Conference
Conference | IX Congresso Iberoamericano de Psicologia/ 2º Congresso da Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses |
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Country/Territory | Portugal |
City | Lisboa |
Period | 9/09/14 → 13/09/14 |
Keywords
- Career exploration
- Childhood
- Career assessmen