Career Counseling in the Future: Constructing, Collaborating, Advocating

A Content Analysis of the Counseling Literature on Technology Integration: American Counseling Association (ACA) Counseling Journals between 2000 and 2018

This content analysis provides an overview of articles specific to technology integration in the field of counseling published in American Counseling Association (ACA) journals between the years 2000 and 2018. In addition to the number of articles on this topic published during this time period, the study identified other aspects such as authors and institutional affiliations; methodology, study locations, and application settings; target populations and sample characteristics; and areas and types of technology integration. Recommendations are provided for counseling research in general and for future research extending from specific circumstances such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Social Justice Identity

This exploratory, phenomenological qualitative study was designed to investigate the phenomenon of social justice identity by understanding respondents’ lived experiences with social justice efforts. Data analysis yielded four themes describing the lived experiences of respondents’ social justice identity. Implications for training, supervision, and research are included.

Tracking Holland Interest Codes: The Case of South African Field Guides

Holland believes that specific personality types seek out matching occupational environments and his theory codes personality and environment according to a six letter interest typology. Since 1985 there have been numerous American studies that have queried the validity of Holland's coding system. Research in South Africa is scarcer, despite critical expansion and development in occupational fields such as the ecotourism industry. The present article describes the Holland interest codes of male and female student and working field guides. The results indicate that the interest code typology of both groups does not match the prescribed code for this occupation in the South African Dictionary of Occupations (Taljaard & von Mollendorf, 1987). Recommendations are made for further cross-cultural and cross-national research as well as for the possible revision of dictionaries of occupations in different countries.

VaMoS

Knowing our values, motives, and skills enables us to achieve a better match of person and job characteristics, which leads to satisfaction and well-being. However, discrepancies between one’s individual values, motives, and skills occur frequently and entail strain and lower satisfaction. We developed an instrument to address this problem systematically, VaMoS (Affective Values, Cognitive Motives and Skills) (1) provides an efficient way to assess important characteristics with only one questionnaire and (2) detects conflicts between them, which can be solved using career counseling to enhance satisfaction and improve work–life balance. A first online study ( n = 341) was used to reduce the initially developed items based on statistical properties. A second sample ( n = 574) confirmed the statistical model and gave initial evidence of the validity of the theoretical model: A discrepancy between affective values, cognitive motives, and skills was positively related among others with strain and negatively related to work–life balance and satisfaction.

Contextual Affordances of Rural Appalachian Individuals

Vocational psychology has recently begun examining the career development of marginalized and underrepresented populations. Social cognitive career theory provides a theoretical understanding of how cultural differences, resources, and barriers may affect the vocational choices and actions of individuals from minority populations. Contextual affordances, in particular, provide psychologists with a mechanism through which both distal and proximal environments influence vocational outcomes. This article examines the contextual affordances of Appalachian individuals from a social justice perspective. Implications for interventions and future research are proposed.

Transgender Identities and Gender Variance in Vocational Psychology

Effective practices for career counseling with gender variant individuals have yet to be identified for reasons that may include perceptions that the population is too small to warrant in-depth research, lack of funding for such efforts, and practitioners' lack of training and experience with transgender concerns. In this article, we describe the status of research and practice with respect to gender variant individuals. Definitions and terminology, vocational and workplace concerns, and vignettes of vocational and work-related situations that career counseling professionals may encounter when working with gender variant individuals are presented. Recommendations for practice, social advocacy, and future research are provided.