The effect of career decision-making group guidance program on 9th grade students? levels of career-decision making difficulties

The purpose of this research is to examine the effects of career decision-making group guidance program on 9th grade students? levels of career-decision making difficulties.In this study, the placebo control group with pretest, posttest and follow-up test experimental design was used. In this study, students have taken part in experimental group (female:8, male:7) and placebo control group (female:7; male:8). These students have been selected among 400 students from Melikgazi Necdet Taş Anadolu Lisesi (200 students) and Melikgazi Mustafa Eminoğlu Anadolu Lisesi (200 students) in 2008-2009 education period. In this study, career decision-making difficulties were measured by the scale of Career Decision Making Difficulties Questionnaire (CDMDQ) which was originally developed by Gati and Saka (2001b) and adapted to the Turkish adolescents by Bacanlı (2008). In analyzing the research data, Independent t test, one sample t test and Covariance tests (ANCOVA) were used.The research was carried out in two phases respectively the pilot and main implementation. The pilot implementation was made to address the lack of career decision-making group guidance program in the 2008-2009 academic year, in April. 14 students out of 160 from Konya Karatay Lisesi took part in the pilot study (8 Female, 6 Male). The main study was carried out in May and June in 2008-2009 education period. The experimental group of the research is consisted of students of Necdet Taş high school and placebo control group is consisted of students of Mustafa Eminoğlu high school. Career decision-making group guidance program has been applied to pilot and main experiment groups by the researcher.Career decision-making group guidance program has been applied to experiment group in 11 sessions. Within the same months, social training program which is unrelated to career decision making was applied for 5 weeks to plasebo control group.Findings of the study,1. The total decision making difficulties of experiment group students who participate career decision making group guidance has decreased significantly than levels of students in placebo group students2. Experiment group students' level of career decision making which arising from lack of readines, lack of ınformation and ınconsistent ınformation has decreased significantly than students of placebo group students3. Students? level of career decision-making difficulties which arising from motivation, general ındecisiviness, dysfunctional beliefs, career decision-making process, personality, occupations, ways of obtaining additional information, unreliable ınformation, internal conflicts, external conflicts has decreased significantly than students? of placebo group students4. After 11 weeks of time, follow-up test, the decrease in the levels of lack of readines, lack of ınformation and ınconsistent ınformation and total career decision making difficulty still existed.Briefly, the findings of this study generally have supported the hypothesis of this study. These findings have indicated that career decision-making group guidance program which was developed on the basis of Analytical Hierarchy Process Model (Andrew, Stefan and Elisabeth, 2008; Saaty, 1994), Model, Presciriptive Decision Making Model (Bell at al., 1998) and Gati?s PIC model (Prescreening-In depth exploration-Choices) (Gati and Asher, 2001a) are effective on decreasing the career decision-making difficulties of the 9th grade students. In light of these findings, suggestions regarding to the scientific research on the field of career counselling and guidance are introduced.