Friday, February 12, 2016

WEEK 4 - MODERN: MATCHING THEORIES - HOLLAND


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—Defining How Well a Person or Environment Can Be Described
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.

 Identity—Describing the Clarity or Stability of One’s Goals, Interests, and Talents
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
1.      invalid             valid
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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