The Outcomes of Vocational Interventions

Abstract

The purposes of this article are to (a) summarize the status of career intervention research since Spokane and Oliver's seminal meta-analysis of vocational intervention outcome and (b) discuss in more detail a recently proposed method for determining whether career interventions make a difference in the lives of clients (clinical significance). Although several excellent meta-analyses of the career intervention outcome literature have appeared since 1983, we briefly summarize the metaanalytic results, discuss future research directions that were suggested by the meta-analyses, and evaluate our progress in addressing suggestions. The bulk of the article focuses on summarizing how clinical significance of career outcomes can be addressed, presenting normative data that can be used to address clinical significance questions with several widely used outcome measures, and illustrating clinical significance calculations using published career intervention studies.The first major meta-analysis of career intervention outcome appeared over 30 years ago (Spokane & Oliver, 1983). We thank Bruce Walsh, Editor of the Journal of Career Assessment, for asking us to write a 30th anniversary article on this seminal study. Although we missed the 30th anniversary by several years, it is still worth revisiting this study to see how far research on career intervention efficacy has advanced over the ensuing years. Thus, the first purpose of this article is to use the Spokane and Oliver (1983) article as a springboard to summarize the current status of career intervention outcome research.Spokane's and Oliver (1983) meta-analysis of the career outcome literature seemed to inspire a number of subsequent meta-analyses. The purposes of these newer meta-analyses were to update

A professional development program with an assessed ePortfolio: A practical solution for engaging undergraduates with their career development in large student cohorts

“…Student anxiety and stress about their careers supports the need for careers education in undergraduate non-vocational degree programs. Metaanalyses of the careers outcome literature indicates that engaging students with their career development promotes careers awareness, employability and wellbeing (Brown & Roche, 2016;Gedye, Fender, & Chalkley, 2004;Mayston, 2002;Watts & Hawthorn, 1992;Whiston, Sexton, & Lasoff, 1998). Indeed, students' career development and mental health are considered interconnected, with career indecision related to depression (Walker & Peterson, 2012;Zunker, 2008) and lower anxiety levels leading to increased engagement in career preparation processes (i.e.…”

Meta-Analysis and Evidence-Based Career Practice: Current Status and Future Directions

“…A z cs of 0.00 at posttreatment indicates that there were no differences between the means of the treatment and norm group (that clients became very similar to nonclients on this measure after counseling, demonstrating clinical significance). Brown and Roche (2016) illustrated the use of the method with several examples from the published literature (I also provided additional illustrations in the 2014 chapter), one of which was a study by Masdonati, Massoudi, and Rosier (2009) that compared a four to five session individual career counseling intervention for Swiss adults to a nonequivalent control group. Outcomes were measured with the Career DecisionMaking Difficulties Questionnaire (CDDQ; Gati, Krausz, Osipow, 1996) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985).…”

“…I also introduced in the 2014 chapter and in a 2016 article (Brown & Roche, 2016) another method to address questions of clinical significance that can complement the Jacobson and Truax (1991) method or substitute for it when that method cannot be used. It is also applicable when one wants to compare pretreatment and posttreatment group means for their clinical significance (the Jacobson and Truax method is used to track individual client change).…”

“…Outcomes were measured with the Career DecisionMaking Difficulties Questionnaire (CDDQ; Gati, Krausz, Osipow, 1996) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985). Using normative data on each scale that we also provided in the 2016 article (Brown & Roche, 2016) for Swiss young adults, we found that at pretreatment, clients displayed substantial decision-making difficulties (compared to the normative sample) on the CDDQ total score (z cs = +1.48), and below average levels of life satisfaction (z cs = -.87). At posttreatment, the corresponding z cs values were .03 and -.27.…”

Cognitive Information Processing (CIP) Theory: Challenges and Opportunities for Integrating Theory, Research, and Practice

“…Given that evidencebased practice articles increase research relevancy and provide a natural opportunity for integrating research and practice, manuscripts presenting evidence-based practice (determined by empirical evidence) and best practices (determined by expert judgment) should be proactively solicited (Sampson et al, 2014). Brown (2015), Brown and Roche (2016), and Whiston and Rose (2015) provide helpful recommendations on improving the validity and relevance of the evidence base for career interventions. Attention should also be given to articles that examine the use of the evidence basedpractice that we already have, particularly the use of evidence for career intervention improvement.…”