Careers Guidance at a Distance

M. Cawthorne

Context:
This article from Open Learning, published in Great Britain, was written by one of the Open University's full-time senior counselors.

Source:
Cawthorne, M. 1987. "Careers Guidance at a Distance." Open Learning 2(3), pp. 30-34.

Copyright:
Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

Martin Cawthorne

It has become accepted both here and in North America that higher education establishments should offer their students a careers guidance service. Every University, Polytechnic and College of Higher Education has its own service, accessible to its own students, which like other departments within the institution has its own staff and accommodation. These services have continued to be provided even though higher education has experienced shrinking budgets during recent years. Presumably these institutions are concerned to foster the development of their students in the broadest sense, and not simply to impart knowledge within the narrow confines of a particular academic discipline. There is an implicit acknowledgement that as students progress through a course of study they become more aware of themselves and their purpose in life. This developing self-awareness will be no less likely in students engaged, over a period of time, in distance or open learning.

There would seem, therefore, to be a logic in distance teaching institutions offering their students similar careers guidance opportunities. The fact that some distance students are already in employment does not alter their need for vocational guidance. Many wish to use their studies to develop themselves within their current job, or to change their occupations entirely. Surveys of Open University students, for example, reveal that more than 30 per cent hope that their studies win have a direct influence on their occupations.

Before embarking on a discussion of how careers guidance can be provided, it is as well to consider what is meant by the term. Thirty years or so ago careers guidance was largely limited to advising clients of the qualifications and experience required for particular occupations, how to get this experience, and then passing on some basic facts about particular jobs. This was followed by a period during which increasing emphasis was placed on the methods of differential psychology—using tests to measure aptitudes and then attempting to match these aptitudes and abilities to the requirements of jobs. Like computer dating, this technique became more feasible as computers developed. More recently the concept of 'career development' (Watts et al, 198l) has crossed the Atlantic and is now found to be increasingly influencing careers guidance in the United Kingdom. The ideas of matching are not dismissed; rather the focus of this process is shifted from the simple client abilities—job requirement match to considering the needs, interests and values of the clients and what work can offer them in terms of their personality and lifestyle. Guidance is seen to be concerned with self-development and growth and with helping people to make decisions for themselves. Thus, the shift is away from simple diagnosis of individuals' abilities followed by prescription of appropriate occupations to facilitating their decision-making processes and developing their decision-making skills.

The question arises then as to whether vocational guidance can be successfully provided at a distance using distance teaching techniques. During the past 15 years or so a variety of fairly crude techniques (described below) have been used with limited success. Fortunately, the increasingly sophisticated techniques of distance education, the development of information technology and the growing interest in using computers being shown by the conventional careers services offer great hope for the future of vocational guidance at a distance.

The techniques discussed in this article are addressed mainly at distance education, but all of them can be used throughout open learning. Indeed, where this is based on learning resource centres, or is linked with Open Tech units there may be many extra advantages to be exploited. In these cases, for instance, comparatively expensive hardware in the form of micro-computers, video-disc players, etc. may be available for individual use by students, which are not generally options open to remote distance education students.

Stages in careers guidance

A very crude model of the career development needs of a student is given in Figure 1. In practice, students may enter this chain at any stage although they may well back-track from time to time.

Figure 1 A model of student career development needs

Self-assessment
Information about occupations
Obtaining employment
Further training
Stage 2A

Stage 3 Obtaining employment: Let me begin with this stage as it is potentially the most tractable. The questions of where to look for jobs, how to apply for them, how to behave at interviews and so forth have already been tackled with varying degrees of success by the Open University in the form of a structured mini-course, Towards a new job: a structured approach to obtaining employment for Open University students and graduates (Cawthorne, 1980)². This took the same form as a typical Open University course, with self-assessment questions, in-text exercises, etc. Similar approaches have been attempted in other publications aimed at a broader audience (e.g., Daily Telegraph, undated).³ Film and videos of interview situations are also available and are currently much used by careers services. It would be comparatively easy to integrate purpose-made videos and printed material into a structured course, and indeed the Community Education section of the Open University has some thoughts of doing just this.

The missing element in this limited approach to Stage 3 is the lack of any information on the real jobs currently available. A college-based careers service can collect and display such information and update it on a regular basis. This information could easily be mailed to students at a distance, but if it were to be done only at, say, monthly intervals it would often be outdated by the time the student received it. Here is a role for a computerised system. If a network of remote terminals linked to a central computer is available (and this is certainly the case for Open University students), then vacancy information on the central computer, updated on, say, a weekly basis, can be made more readily available to students.

Even more exciting is the possibility of such computerised information being broadcast for use on a home computer. A few years ago the BBC transmitted computer programs for education users in conjunction with its own BBC Home Computer (ACORN). I am not aware of any plans to adopt this latter approach for the passage of job information, but it remains as a possibility for organizations such as the Open University and Open College, who have access to the national broadcast networks. Currently local television and radio broadcast information on a limited range of local vacancies, This information can also be accessed via the information channels such as Teletext. What I am suggesting is the transmission of up-to-date information on jobs targeted at a specific audience: those students of a particular distance teaching institution. These jobs could be of both national and regional interest. Electronic mail networks which link computers via telephone lines are technically well suited for the dissemination of information which needs frequent updating, but the cost to individual students who would need access in their own homes would be prohibitive.

Stage 2 Information: The provision of information on particular occupations and employers traditionally relies on printed material. In colleges a library of up-to-date information is available in the form of files for use on the premises, and in purpose-prepared occupational information leaflets which are updated perhaps every one or two years. The Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) and the Open University both produce such leaflets, Provided that the distance education student can define the information required and is prepared to wait for it, such information can be mailed. This information might usefully be collected together and made available on a disc for use with a home micro-computer. This would then allow distance students with access to a home computer to browse just as their counterparts on campus can in careers libraries. The master copy of the disc could be cheaply updated as details change. In practice, of course, there are some very real problems in transmitting large quantities of chatty information by means of visual display units (VDUs). The screen is not as pleasant a medium to read as the printed page, even with the facility to scroll and back-track. And, although the postal approach works well enough, it is inherently inferior to a campus careers library which also contains reference-only employer produced literature, items clipped from magazines and cross-indexed references which can be immediately followed up on-site. This on-site immediacy is always lost to a remote student.

The secondary link 2A in the simple chain model of Figure 1 is well catered for in the United Kingdom by the Educational Counselling and Credit Transfer Information Service (ECCTIS) and by MicroDOORS. ECCTIS keeps an updated bank of information on currently available courses. This information can be accessed via an on-line VDU, which students might well have available at a remote learning centre, a local library, or a local careers centre. But the information is also available via telephone or post. The ECCTIS data bank is being constantly updated and expanded to include specialised and localised courses. MicroDOORS is a flexible information tool which runs on a range of micro-computers and provides job information with entry and training details. There is also a facility for users to search the data-base for selected titles which broadly match requirements.

A truly client-centred careers service will have in mind not just the needs of its average student but also the needs of its minorities. An important minority group in any distance teaching institution is the disabled students, attracted to it because of their inability to attend a conventional institution. For blind students, audio-tape versions of occupational information leaflets can be produced. If these were produced as a matter of course, they would probably find use by sighted students as well, many of whom travel to work daily in a car with an audio-cassette player. With the demands of work, family, friends and study, the average student in distance education has precious little spare time to devote to reading careers literature.

Stage 1 Self-assessment: 'What do I want to do?' is a frequent question raised by students of all ages. Some students may have partly answered this question in deciding their major subject(s) of study, but even this decision may not yet have been made in the type of modular system run by, for instance, the Open University.

Students need to be encouraged to explore their own values, abilities and interests. Decisions need to be made—not necessarily one big one, but a succession of small decisions. Many students are not equipped to make these personal decisions and need help. Mature students have to consider an extra range of limited personal constraints such as age of entry, lengthy professional training and geographical and financial ties. And then there is the all important question; 'will there be any jobs available in this area of work?'

Traditionally the work of the careers counsellor has been centred on this stage. A skilled counsellor can help students to explore and analyse themselves, ideally in a series of interviews interspersed with introspection and visits to the careers library (i.e. entry back and forth between Stage I and Stage 2). This interaction between counsellor and client at interview is regarded by most careers advisers as irreplaceable. However, if we are to help students at a distance, we must consider methods which do not involve face-to-face interviews. Three approaches spring to mind:

First, the use of printed material in the form of structured exercises which help students to reach conclusions about themselves; for example, do they prefer working with people or machines, how important is financial reward and status to them (see, for instance, Hopson and Scally, 1984).⁴ My experience with students using this type of material is that it tends to leave them with a feeling of frustration and a dismissive 'so what?' Without the presence of a counsellor to react to the student's responses, the exercises can have an arid feel to them, and attempts at every stage to build in cues like 'have you considered . . .?' makes such printed material bulky and complex. This is the realm of programmed learning, and at this level of complexity is best handled by computer.

Second, use of the telephone, a much under-used device in distance education. Its main snags are that it is expensive (admittedly a relative term), requires a good deal of special skill training for both parties (although counsellor training is the more important), and is time consuming for the counsellor. It can, however, be a useful partner in the vocational guidance process, particularly if counsellor and client both have the same piece of printed material to refer to. Experimental usage along these lines has been conducted by the Open University with moderate success, but careers counsellors still report the results as inferior to face-to-face counselling.

Third, use of the computer, which for many years now has been increasing in the careers guidance process. In the United Kingdom for instance, JIIGCAL, GRADSCOPE and CASCAID-HE are programs which attempt to match occupation to clients' stated needs, interests, values, skills, etc. Clients are asked to respond on, say, a five-point scale to questions designed to expose their requirements. The computer then searches the job-bank within the program for the closest matches. These systems were all designed to supplement the work of careers advisers and not to replace them. Indeed, computer-assisted careers guidance systems require careers follow-up as they tend to raise as many questions as they answer.

The Open University has considerable experience in using CASCAID-HE, and to some extent GRADSCOPE, mostly by submitting students' responses to the questions to a remote main-frame computer which produces a hard-copy output. Student and counsellor then discuss the output by telephone. Within limitations this system works well. The main snag has been the long delay between the students' responses and the return of the printouts. For localised careers services the use of a micro-computer with immediate reactive responses has been found valuable, especially where both VDU and hard copy are available. The hard copy then forms the basis for the next discussion with the counsellor.

Figure 2
CACGS(HE): Outline of functions?

CAREER PLANNING STAGE

SELF-ASSESSMENT
[VALUES, ABILITIES, SKILLS, INTERESTS]

COURSES DATA BASE
ANALYSIS/SEARCH

OCCUPATIONS DATA BASE
ANALYSIS/SEARCH

EMPLOYERS/JOBS DATA BASE
ANALYSIS/SEARCH

COURSE PLACES

DECISION-AIDING COMPONENTS
EVALUATING: PREFERRED OPTIONS CHANCES OF ENTRY

JOB VACANCIES

APPLICATION PROCEDURES

ACTION PLANNING
OCCUPATION& JOB ENTRY

JOB SEARCH INSTRUCTION

These systems have particular drawbacks for careers advice at a distance. Apart from needing one-to-one counselling as follow-up, they have so far been aimed either at schools or at best at conventional university and college students. Students in distance education tend to be different in their characteristics, mature and experienced in work.

In North America more sophisticated learning systems have been developed, such as DISCOVER and SIGI. Not only do they attempt to match users' requirements to the job opportunities available, but they also give them practice and help them to learn relevant skills and concepts such as decision-making and implementation of career plans. They have proved not to be easily adaptable to the British environment, however, mainly because of cultural differences, and in any case they are designed for use on a campus where access to a careers counsellor face-to-face is possible (Katz, 1980).⁵

Computers and the future

A thorough and all-embracing computerised system of vocational guidance for use in the United Kingdom is now quite feasible using modem computers, and with the proliferation of powerful micro-computers these systems will become increasingly available at a distance. The limitation of any future system will be dependent upon the extent to which the programs can be made to mirror existing good careers guidance practice, the accuracy and extent of the data bases, and the degree to which they can become self-standing. No one, least of all a careers adviser, believes that face-to-face counselling will ever disappear, but if the new systems do not reduce the client's dependence on the counsellor they will fail at least in part, and certainly be of minimal value to distance education students.

At present, a system funded by the Department of Education and Science is being developed by a consortium comprising Queen Mary College in London, the University of London Careers Advisory Service and Scicon Limited.⁶ Currently known as CACGS(HE), this is an ambitious and exciting project. The target of higher education reflects the fact that the original thinking came from within AGCAS (Pierce-Price, 1986).⁷ CACGS(HE) is made up of a series of inter-related and interactive modules (see Figure 2). These modules will be directly accessed by the user. The system will allow users 'to make complex structured searches of all its data bases in a flexible and multidimensional way'. A student will be able to log into the system and go through the career planning and self-assessment package and then move on to other programs as indicated by the arrows, transferring information and ideas from one part into the next.

Apart from the scale of CACGS(HE), interconnecting as it does the several different data bases, there is the important 'decision aiding component' approach which has been used in SIGI and DISCOVER but which will be new to this country. These decision aids will be based on rational decision theory, combining the factors of personal preferences and probability of successful entry to help users select particular options. CACGS(HE) is designed to help the user make and implement more effective career decisions. It takes a developmental rather than just a 'matching' approach.

How useful will CACGS(HE) be for distance education students? As with SIGI and DISCOVER and all other computer systems, the optimum use will be as part of the overall guidance facilities available on the premises of a careers service. Using the system will throw up many ideas and questions which cannot be answered immediately by the machine and will need intervention by a skilled careers officer. These may be of a factual nature, but more likely they will be counselling problems. Making logical decisions about one's future may mean accepting initially unpalatable truths about the real world and recognizing deep prejudices and contradiction within oneself. And not least is the acceptance of one's own limitations. Even if logical decisions are reached, many clients will not act logically in implementing their decision. Speedy follow-up should ideally be available and this is not so readily provided at a distance. I believe that all users of such a system should have follow-up discussions with a counsellor, perhaps during the course of its several hours of use (students will probably be making more than one visit to the computer terminal) or immediately afterwards.

CACGS(HE) is likely to be available for use with AGCAS careers service, in late 1989 or early 1990. The main data bases will be held on a central mainframe computer but these will be made available for use locally on micro-computers, presumably on discs. Once delivered to the local micro, the system will operate on a stand alone basis and as such could be used in a remote learning centre. There are two main problems here—the reservation on follow-up counselling noted above and the fact that the data base will refer to the conventional college or university student. However, the basic structure of CACGS(HE) is such that modification for the adult learner will be possible. Perhaps by the mid- 1990s the system will have been adapted for the adult, mid-career distance learner.

Problems for the future

The future of careers guidance at a distance will be increasingly linked to computerized systems. Systems like CACGS and its successors will be highly sophisticated and have such large databases that it is unlikely that they will run on small home computers. More micro-computers may become available in study centres or in learning resource centres, but if students have to attend such centres are we really advising them 'at a distance'? Perhaps the answer here will be similar to that found with students' use of video-cassettes: that increasingly more students have access to a machine and this may be at work or at a local library or local community centre. The cost to the institution is also a major consideration. Minimising the direct use of one-to-one counselling and sharing a CACGS system produced with nationally available funding will keep down the cost to an individual institution but there will still be the need for the institution to fund its service which will deliver the system to its own students.

References

1. Watts, A, G., Super, D. E. and Kidd, J. M. (eds) (1981) Career Development in Britain, Hobsons Press for CRAC.
2. Cawthorne, M. (1980) Towards a new job: a structured approach to obtaining employment for Open University students and graduates, Regional Tutorial Services of the Open University.
3. Daily Telegraph (undated) 'The job Finders Guide'.
4. Hopson, B. and Scally, M. (1984) Build Your Own Rainbow: a workbook for career and life management. Lifeskill Associates.
5. Katz, M. R. (1980) 'SIGI: An interactive aid to career decision making', Journal of College Student Personnel, 21, pp. 34-40.
6. This project is now called PROSPECT.
7. Pierce-Price, P. (1986) 'CACGS(HE)', Newscheck, Vol. 4, No. 3 from Careers and Occupational Information Centre, Manpower Services Commission.