Virginia Counselors’ Picks: The Most Effective career Development Practices for Grades K-5

1. Virginia Counselors’ Picks: The Most Effective career Development Practices for Grades K-5 Dr. Michele Goodman Seibert

2. Elementary Career Development -a significant part of the career development process -a lifelong process that includes early childhood -a process that occurs from early childhood throughout the life span

3. How is it relevant today? • American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009- “progress toward college and career ready standards” • Virginia’s State School Counseling Standards (2004) • Virginia’s College and Career Ready Initiative (2010) –VDOE • President Obama’s Educate to Innovate campaign (2009)

4. Virginia Counseling Standards • Goal for grades K-5: • “Students will investigate the world of work in order to make informed career decisions.”

5. Statement of the Problem

6. What was used?Instrumentation-21 Question Survey combining the following: • Florida School Counselor’s Survey 2000 • Demographics • Assess specific career development activities and practices • Chosen because it was successfully used in previous studies • ( Osborn & Baggerly, 2004) • School Counselor Self Efficacy Scale • Adapted from the Academic/Career subscale • Measure school counselor self efficacy related to elementary career development • SCSE could be used as an outcome measure for School Counseling Education Programs • (Bodenhorn & Skaggs, 2005)

7. Who was surveyed? • Public Elementary School Counselors across the state of Virginia • 106 of 133 city and county divisions were contacted • 1,083 schools • 1,178 email addresses were obtained

8. Procedures • Survey Monkey Gold Plan with enhanced security (SSL) • Electronic web based survey • 1,178 elementary school counselors contacted through email

9. Who responded? • -1178 emails were sent March 2012 • -6 bounced back (incorrect email address) (.51%) • -19 (1.62%) opted out of receiving emails • -729 did not respond (63.23%) • -424 did respond (36.77%) • -387 met the criteria for the survey • Criteria: Part time or full time elementary school counselor for 2010-2011 school year

10. Who answered? Demographics

11. Demographics: Education

12. Demographics: Ethnicity * Four participants skipped the question

13. Demographics: School Location N=6 N=73 N=119 * Skipped by 1 participant

14. Demographics: School Region Total of 388 answered/ 36 skipped (8.5%)-considered NMAR

15. 421 answered the question and 3 skipped the question (.71%) total eligible to complete the survey n=387

16. Range =330-336 (87.5%-89.1% largest difference =1.6%. Grade levels appeared to be equally represented.

17. Experience: # of years as a practicing elementary school counselor • Range 1-35 years • Mean 11.30 years • Median 10 years • Mode 5 years (n=27) • At this point in the survey 377 counselors responded • 10 skipped the question • 8 of the 10 that skipped stopped the survey completely • Adjusted total 379 377 Responded 2 Skipped Question

18. Elementary Career Development Training activities completed within the past year

19. Question 11: In order to be more effective at my school more training could be helpful

20. Training received on elementary career development in counselor education program.

21. Would more time be useful to implement career development? 369 responded 10 Skipped

22. Total hours spent on career development grades K-3 Outliers: 126, 200, 420 hours/ 319 responded and 60 skipped the question

23. Total hours spent on career development grades 4-5 Outlier: 200 hours/ 327 responded/52 skipped

24. Research question 1: What career development practices are currently being implemented by Virginia Elementary school counselors? Results

25. Career Development activities in rank order

26. Research Question 2:Over the 2010-2011 school year, to what extent do you believe that you met the Virginia Counseling standards: Grades K-3 357 responded / 22 skipped the question

27. Research Question2:Over the 2010-2011 school year, to what extent do you believe that you met the Virginia Counseling standards: Grades 4-5 351 Responded / 28 skipped the question

28. What Activities are being used by Counselors with the Highest Self Efficacy?

29. Top 3 Career Activities conducted by counselors indicating “all standards were met”: • K-3 All standards were met • Classroom Career Exploration (101) • Using Print Materials (98) • Completed online career exploration programs (82) • 4-5 All standards were met • Classroom Career Exploration (106) • Using Print Materials (99) • Completed online career exploration programs (89) These results matched the top 3 career activities used overall from research question 1: -Classroom Career Exploration : 90.59% (n=327) -Using Print Materials: 84.21% (n=304) -Completed online career exploration programs: 66.76% (n=241)

30. Summary, Conclusions, Implications, Future Research

31. Population Representation • -8 regional statistics combined for student enrollment 2010-2011 school year • Each region was given a percentage based on number of students in each region • Responses were comparable to the overall student population in grades K-5 in the 2010-2011 school year. • Overall the study represented 1/3 of elementary school counselors

32. Demographics: School Region Total of 388 answered/ 36 skipped (8.5%)-considered NMAR

33. Limitations • Web Survey- • Dillman et al. (2009) some internet users prefer to complete questionnaires by mail • Mixed mode methods may be best • Student Feedback and Outcomes • Lack of student data • Did not measure results of information gained by students during career development activities

34. Implications • Approximately 30% of Virginia elementary school counselors may not actively pursue the goal to meet career development standards. • School counselors may not be held accountable for meeting state standards for career development (affecting transition to the middle school) • Assists counselor educators to prepare students to meet the state and national standards in particular for career development at the elementary level.

35. Recommendations: State Level • Review and Revise Career Development Standards • K-3 (6 standards) • 4-5 (4 standards) • EC1 & EC2 focus on concepts, behaviors, and their relation to the future • EC8 refers to a “belief” including the changing workplace and lifelong learning • Are these concepts too complex? • Can they be measured in elementary school?

36. Future Research • Use the demographic data collected to analyze the SCSE scores to determine if any relationship exists between: • Years of experience • Professional development activities attended • Education on career development in counselor education program • School location • Are counselors given the time and resources to meet these competencies such as computer lab access, time to work with students individually, etc.

37. Future Research • Survey counselors, parents and teachers to determine if parents and teachers implement career information activities that are disseminated to them by the counselor. • Identify what online career exploration programs Virginia Elementary School counselors are using, frequency of use, and grade level use. • Are there ways to increase the variety of career development activities implemented? ( Mentoring instead of Job Shadowing, etc.)