CAREER DEVELOPMENT THEORY(资料2).doc

CAREER DEVELOPMENT THEORY SOURCE: /career-development-theory/ Career development theories help make sense of experiences. A theory is, in effect, a rationalized set of assumptions or hypotheses that allows you to explain the past and predict the future. As such, theories may provide direction and as theories are tested and prove true, theories may be said to expand knowledge. There are two types of career development theories: structural and developmental. Two types of theories Structural Theories: focus on individual characteristics and occupational tasks. Developmental Theories: focus on human development across life span. Structural Theories / Trait and Factor This theory began with Parsons, who proposed that a choice of a vocation depended upon (1) an accurate knowledge of yourself, (2) thorough knowledge of job specifications, and (3) the ability to make a proper match between the two. He wrote: In the wise choice of a vocation there are three broad factors: (1) a clear understanding of yourself, your aptitudes, abilities, interests, ambitions, resources, limitation; (2) a thorough knowledge of the requirements and conditions of success, advantages and disadvantages, compensation, opportunities, and prospects in different lines of work; and (3) true reasoning on the relations of these two groups of acts (Parsons, 1909/1989, p.5). Two major assumptions of trait and factor theory are: (1) that individuals and job traits can be matched, and (2) that close matches are positively correlated with job success and satisfaction. These ideas are still part of our career counseling approach today. John Holland -- Vocational Personalities and Environments This typology theory was developed to organize the voluminous data about people in different jobs and the data about different work environments, to suggest how people make career choices and to explain how job satisfaction and vocational achievement occur. Holland suggested that people can function and develop be