Using Constructivist Career Development to Improve Career Decision Self-Efficacy in TRiO Students

Although more high school graduates are attending college, many are not graduating (The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2004). First-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students are especially at risk for falling through the cracks. To help address this issue, programs such as TRiO Student Support Services (SSS) assist first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students (as well as those with disabilities) who have matriculated into college. Once these students are in college, SSS programs work to retain and graduate them through advising, tutoring, and other academic and social supports. However, helping students to successfully identify a major or career direction is also important. Hence, we developed a constructivist career course based in the empowerment processes of self-reflection, uncovering strengths, and problem solving (Schaurhofer & Peschl, 2005), and we explored outcomes for TRiO students who enrolled in the course. Specifically, we explored whether our course might improve the career decision self-efficacy of TRiO students. Given the importance of self-efficacy to persistence in higher education settings, an intervention aimed at improving career decision self-efficacy seemed to be one useful way to support and extend the ongoing work of TRiO programs.

TRiO programs were established in 1965 to support first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students in attaining postsecondary educational success, particularly with respect to overcoming academic, social, and cultural barriers (Balz & Esten, 1998). Students identified as “first-generation” are typically those whose parents have little more than a high school education and limited familiarity with postsecondary settings. Consequently, in attempting to negotiate their multiple identities across multiple contexts marginality can occur as these students try to bridge home life and college life which are often disconnected (Orbe, 2004). In recent years, higher education has seen a shift toward increasingly more first-generation college students (Orbe, 2004; Pascarella, Pierson, Wolniak, & Terenzini, 2004). In turn, college curricula must be responsive to this growing demographic.

Overview of Constructivist Career Tools and Assignments

Providing tools aimed at constructing identity across contexts seems particularly relevant. We believe that the four constructivist tools of narrative (telling one’s own story), action (exploring identity, beliefs, and values), construction (constructing identity across contexts), and interpretation (using personal information to guide career direction) might be particularly useful for first-generation college students who are prone to “culture shock” and tension navigating both home and school environments (Chen, 2003; McCarron & Inkelas, 2006). Therefore, in addition to empowerment processes, the curriculum for our career course was based in the four constructivist tools of narrative, action, construction, and interpretation.

Using construction to help students create a coherent sense of identity across contexts can help to retain a sense of intergenerational continuity. Intergenerational continuity is important because, for many who are the first in their families to go to college, an initial perception may be that in trail blazing they are breaking tradition and breaking with the family; such perceptions, along with a lack of family support, can be additional sources of tension, stress, and marginality (London, 1989; Orbe, 2004; Phinney & Haas, 2003). Therefore, one of the first activities in the constructivist career course in our study was the career genogram or family tree (Brown & Brooks, 1991).

A career genogram in which students construct identity in the context of family across generations is a specific activity that can foster intergenerational continuity. In our constructivist career class, the genogram activity consisted of two major parts. Part one was an initial worksheet in which students identified members of their family across three generations: (a) Maternal and paternal grandparents, (b) parents/stepparents and maternal and paternal aunts and uncles, and (c) the student him- or herself and siblings/stepsiblings.

As is typical with genograms, in the career genogram in our class students demarcated male members of their family with a square and female members with a circle; however, rather than listing the names of relatives in the specified space on the genogram worksheet (e.g., in the space for maternal grandmother), students were instructed to list the person’s career and mark whether they felt that the person was successful...