The effect of life-design-based intervention on further education and training phase learners, career indecision

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to explore the effect of a life design intervention on learners in the FET phase who attended an urban school in the district of Nkangala in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa. The focus of the study was on a life design counselling approach as the appropriate approach for enhancing the career decision making of learners. The life design approach is a framework underpinned by the integration of career construction theory, self-construction theory, social and social constructivist theories, as well as intra-individual learning and dynamic processes such as career adaptability and career competencies (Genevra et al., 2017). A qualitative research design was chosen to study the research topic and intervention research used to answer the research questions. The intervention activities and techniques used were drawn from the Career Interest Profile (CIP, version 6) (Maree, 2017) and the life design intervention strategies as outlined by Savickas (2015), including structured and semi-structured interviews. Other techniques of qualitative data gathering included the participants’ drawings, collages, and lifelines. Thematic analysis (Clarke & Braun, 2013) was used to analyse the data. The findings of the study revealed that the life design-based intervention increased the majority of the participants’ career decision-making capacity and their career adaptability in respect of the four dimensions of career adaptability, namely concern, control, curiosity, and confidence. The study findings suggested that the learners’ career decision-making challenges had been resolved and that they were able to make informed career decisions.