Professional self-determination (career planning) of modern high school students

Abstract

The range of career choices in the modern world is expanding, which entails a greater responsibility of high school students for their career planning decisions. The modern world requires young people to be flexible and mobile in their career planning, as they should be ready to make career choices more than once and take into account the changing range of available professions, their content and job requirements. In our study, we understand professional selfdetermination (career planning) as an integral personal structure and rely on its components proposed by A. P. Chernyavskaya — autonomy, awareness, decisionmaking, planning and emotional attitude — supplementing them with several other indicators. We used the following methods: The Professional Identity Statuses Questionnaire (A. A. Azbel and A. G. Gretsova), The Questionnaire for Identifying the Motives of Professional Choice, The Professional Readiness Questionnaire (L. N. Kabardova), The Orientation Questionnaire (I.L. Solomin), The Professional Readiness Questionnaire (A. P. Chernyavskaya) and The Unfinished Sentences Methodology (modified by one of the ). The pilot study was conducted at Taezhninskaya School No. 20. The sample consisted of 46 students in grades 8–11 aged 16–18 years, as it is this age range that is specifically important for career planning. We found that modern high school students want to make professional choices independently of others, but do not take into account all the factors necessary for making such choices. For example, high school students’ career choices are often informed by unreliable information sources. They also find it difficult analyze their inclinations and abilities and to correlate them with their future profession — this is due to the fact that they are unaware of working conditions, the required level of education and the educational institutions that offer the relevant programs. The respondents also have decision-making difficulties — e.g., they cannot describe the steps that are required to learn a profession; they lack experience of making independent choices; they do not have the skill of collecting information; and they fail to consider the ways to overcome potential obstacles. Importantly, high school students have a negative emotional attitude towards the situation of career planning and find it difficult to identify their emotions related to such a situation. The data obtained allow us to conclude that modern high school students have difficulties in professional self-determination (career planning), which confirms the need for further research in order to create psychological and pedagogical conditions for career planning of modern high school students.