Week 4 - February 2nd
Holland (Matching Theories)
Crites (1969) identified three broad overlapping eras to describe the evolution of career and development theory building which are: Observational, Empirical, and Theoretical.
Theoretical Era can be subdivided into two categories labeled modern and postmodern. Modern theories began in the 1950s with postmodern emerging in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Name of Theory: Holland (Theory of Vocational Personalities and Work Environments)
Dates: Modern Theory--appeared in the 1950s - sometime in the 1980s
Theorist: John Holland
Main Concept/Ideas:
Holland has a gift for making people think about theory in practical terms and opened his text by stating his theory with three common and fundamental questions:
1. What personal and
environmental characteristics lead to satisfying career decisions, involvement,
and achievement, and what characteristics lead to indecision, dissatisfying
decisions, or lack of accomplishment?
2. What personal and
environmental characteristics lead to stability or change in the kind and level
of work a person performs over a lifetime?
3. What are the most effective
methods for providing assistance to people with career problems?
In Holland’s book, he emphasized the practical application of the theory in a few pages leaving the rest of the book for practical ways to apply the theory. His theory is simple and suggests that people can be characterized in terms of their resemblance to six personality types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional (RIASEC) model. The more people resemble a type, the more they exhibit the traits and behaviors of that type, and environments can be characterized in terms of their resemblance to and support of the types. Holland stated, “The pairing of persons and environments leads to outcomes what we can predict and understand from our knowledge of the personality types and the environmental models.”
Research supports Holland’s contention that there are six distinct personality types and that these types differ in terms of their interests, vocational and avocational preferences, goals, beliefs, values, and skills. See Link 1 for the distinguishing features and comprehensive description of the personality types and an overview of the salient characteristics of the types which comes directly from Making Vocational Choices: A Theory of Personalities and Work Environments which is an assessment instrument commonly to determine a person’s resemblance to the types.
To help make appropriate use of the theory, one must know the relationship of one type to another (calculus) or understanding the hexagonal model that defines the psychological resemblances among personality types and environments and their interactions. See link 1 for hexagonal model. Understanding the hexagon, one must appreciate the consistency of the types as well as the environments, congruence of types with environments, differentiation of types, and vocational identity.
Calculus—Visualizing the Relationship Within and Between Types and Environments
To understand the calculus, or relationship, which is the most
important, can be seen visually by placing each type at a particular point and
order on a hexagon. With Realistic,
Investigate, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional (RIASEC) placed
in order, you can visualize the resemblance of one to another. The closer one type is to another, the more
it resembles the other. Example, R and I
are close together and are close in terms of how they are described and how
they can work together. By finding a
person’s resemblance types, predicts the ease or difficulty of finding
environments that will support that person’s particular pattern of traits.
Consistency—Defining the Relatedness Between Types and Environments
By understanding this principle, one can begin to see how the
theory predicts the ease or difficult of people making a career choice. If people identify with types that are close
to one another on the hexagon, Holland defined that as being consistent.
Congruence—Defining the Fit Between Types and Environments
This theory will provide additional help in predicting how one
will find satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a choice. The principle is thinking about the agreement
between a person’s personality type and the environment.
Differentiation helps one refine or modify predictions of
vocational behaviors, and some bear much stronger resemblance to one type than
to another. Employing the principle of
differentiation is another way to help make practical use of the theory.
Another idea emerged from Holland’s efforts at refining the theory
which was vocational identity which
is establishing how clear a picture one has of one’s current career plans or
simply who or where one is in a vocational sense. Holland developed the instrument My
Vocational Situation to measure the state of one’s identity. One can be assessed as having a clear or
unclear picture of career goals and of the tasks needed to make the goal
clear. The vocational identity concept,
and the instrument to measure it, has proven to be another way of making practical
what is offered by the theory which makes the theory clear that career
decisions are easy for some and difficult for others. Offering help with decision making, career
explorations, and the like can be easier if one had a sense of the vocational
identity of those requesting help. The
concept has also been used to describe work environments; theory can be defined
as clear or unclear in terms of goals, tasks, and rewards provided.
Vocational identity is one more way we can add to our ability to answer the three basic questions posed by Holland as we have some basis for talking about how and why people make the career decisions they do, why some are satisfied and others are not, why some persist with the career choices and others do not, and why some interventions are better than others at providing career assistance.
Implications of Holland’s Theory of Vocational Personalities and Work Environments for the Practice of Career Counseling
1. Help client’s asses their
personalities and work environments and help them see the relationships between
the two. Either the Vocational
Preference Inventory or Self-Directed Search (SDS) at http://www.self-directed-search.com/ can help with the
process. The Party Exercise popularized
in What Color is Your Parachute can
prove effective. The Career Interests
Game, from the University of Missouri Career Center, provides a visual online
representation at http://career.missouri.edu/career-interest-game.
2. Consider using an
occupational card sort with clients that classifies all occupational titles
according to the Holland codes. Use the
Occupational Dreams Inventory (ODI) to stimulate discussion and then assign
Holland codes.
3. Work with clients to help
them see how their traits, life goals, values, aptitudes and competencies, and
involvements and achievements can be associated with the match personality with
work environment.
4. Use the My Vocational
Situation (MVS) to establish client needs for help. See http://saens.hi.is/sites/saens.hi.is/files/MyVocationalSituation.pdf.
5. Consider using the Career
Attitudes and Strategies Inventory (CASI) developed by Holland and Gottfredson to
help employed people assess their current work environments http://www.creativeorgdesign.com/tests_page.htm?id=332
.
6. Organize and reference career
and occupational information according to the Holland codes. Use the Gottfredson and Holland Dictionary of Holland Occupational Titles, which
classifies all occupations according to the codes as a guide http://www.kimandrylpc.com/holland-codes.html
.
7. Learn to listen carefully to
clients’ personal career theories (PCTs) or their career stories as this may be
all that is needed.
Defining the Career Intervention and Change Approach
Holland offered three basic assumptions for this approach: a)
Everyone has a theory about careers (i.e., everyone has a PCT); b) When that
theory does not seem to work, a person seeks help of some sort and sometimes
from professionals; and c) When asked, provide interventions that will help the
person implement, revise, or refine that theory. Holland offered that a diagnostic scheme be
applied when listening to client and listen for evidence of how to describe the
theory. The PCT has three
dimensions: validity, complexity, and
comprehensiveness. When a client comes
for help, define interventions based on what we have come to know what is most
effective given the particulars of the theory.
It is important to listen for all the clues of how to describe the
theory and to come to know what works best to help one implement, refine, or
revise the theory. The framework listed
below for this approach using three continua.
Assessing One’s PCT
2. primitive complex
3. incomplete comprehensive
Holland suggestions for implementing a “four-level diagnostic and treatment plan”:
Level 1 for people with valid personal theories which is people who need little help and have a well-developed PCT.
Level 2 for people whose have an occupational knowledge section that requires extension, revision, or adaptation to an unusual work or unemployment situation. This level describes people who need some help with at least some part of their theory—minor extension, revision, or adaptation.
Level 3 for people whose theories have a weak translation unit or lack a reliable formula for relating personal characteristics to occupations, special occupational roles, or specialization, or for managing job changes. This level describes people who have difficulties seeing themselves in particular occupations or making changes in their jobs. They need substantial help, probably one-on-one career counseling focused on resolving a particular weakness in their thinking.
Level 4 for people whose personal theory has pervasive weaknesses. This level describes people who need extensive help as they have major flaws or weaknesses in their PCTs.
This four-level model helps us to think of clients in terms of what they bring to us. Experience is important in helping to develop and provide appropriate career services.
Implications of the Career Intervention and Change Approach for the Practice of Career Counseling
1. Recognize that every person
has a PCT that informs his or her life decisions. The counselor’s role is to help that client
articulate and refine that theory.
2. Encourage clients to describe
how they understand their PCT. Think about the validity, complexity, and
comprehensiveness.
3. A PCT, developed by a client,
that is valid, complex, and comprehensive, the client could possibly need the
most is career information and reassurance that he/she is on the track.
4. If parts of the PCT seem to
lack validity or are overly simplified understandings or incomplete in
important ways, help the client to flesh out the theory to help them better
describe their life circumstances.
The theory of career intervention and change can be seen as reorganizing individual differences and how various career history can be applied to help clients describe their own unique career paths. Encouraging clients to design their own PCTs, the client will capitalize on the wealth to their self-understanding which will help them to guide their own life pattern.
Links to Articles or Videos:
https://elearn.etsu.edu/d2l/le/content/6249282/viewContent/38584712/View;
https://elearn.etsu.edu/d2l/le/content/6249282/viewContent/38584715/View
https://elearn.etsu.edu/d2l/le/content/6249282/viewContent/38584720/View
https://elearn.etsu.edu/d2l/le/content/6249282/viewContent/38584725/View
https://elearn.etsu.edu/d2l/le/content/6249282/viewContent/38584725/View
https://elearn.etsu.edu/d2l/le/content/6249282/viewContent/38399266/View
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