A sample vocational group guidance study based on Ginzberg andhis associates' developmental theory

Abstract

This study was conducted on 12 (6 male 6 female) 8^th grade students of a primary school in Ankara. The age of the students varied between 14 and 16. Students participated in the study valuntarily after the school counsellor had informed them about it. Sessions were completed in six weeks.

Vocational maturity inventory which was developed by Kuzgun and Bacanlı (2005) was administered to group member before and after the program in order to assess the effectiveness of the program. It was found that 6 of the group members did not reach due level of vocational maturity in the pretest, in other words their vocational maturity was low (below 143 points). Three (those between 143-155 points) reached the expected vocational maturity level, yet they needed to increase it in order to make a more appropriate vocational decision. The other three  group members (those above 155 points) were the ones who had reached the expected vocational maturity.

Posttest results showed that two of the group members had not reached the targeted vocational maturity.  One of these students stated that since he would work at the building sector in which his father was working the sessions had not picked up much of his interest and it was observed that he had not attended to two of the group activies. This may be considered as the reason why he did not benefitted from group works.

Lack of improvement in other group member's maturity level may be the result of the fact that he will not continue his education after primary school and his reluctance to attend to activities in group sessions.

After the implementation of the program, a significant difference was observed between pretest and posttest scores. Mean vocational maturity inventory scores before the program was 145.83 while it increased to 153.25. This finding shows that the study had an important influence on the improvement of vocational maturity by raising group members' vocational maturity inventory scores.