Modern and Postmodern Career Theories: The Unnecessary Divorce.

Postmodern approaches to career counseling are becoming increasingly popular. Part of the impetus for the postmodern view has involved perceived problems in the assumptions and application of the modern approach. Two points of view have emerged: (a) the modern and postmodern approaches arc incompatible, and the postmodern approach is superior to the modern approach and (b) the modern and postmodern approaches are compatible, each with specific benefits and limitations, and individual needs and cost-effectiveness should govern the decision of which approach to use. Key issues to examine in this discussion are standardized career assessment, aggregate career information, matching, and cost-effectiveness.

The postmodern approach has made important contributions to the delivery of career resources and services. Theorists, researchers, and practitioners who have advocated a postmodern view have helped those espousing a modern approach to think critically about what individuals need and how they can be best served. However, potential problems can occur when these two conceptual approaches are viewed as mutually exclusive. Problems can result when emphasis is placed on the differences between modernism and postmodernism, the problems associated with the modern approach, and the benefits associated with the postmodern approach. Creating winners and losers in this discussion is detrimental to the profession and the individuals being served. This article begins with an examination of modernism and postmodernism in terms of career assessment, career information, matching, and cost-effectiveness and concludes with a discussion of the importance of integrating modern and postmodern career theory, research, and practice.

Issues Related to Using Standardized Career Assessments and Aggregate Career Information

The use of standardized career assessment and aggregate career information from multiple sources is typically identified as part of the modern approach. Two potential problems are usually identified with these resources. The first potential problem is that both individuals and the labor market have changed radically and are now too fluid for assessment and information variables to remain stable over time. Changes have undoubtedly occurred; however, the changes are not at all uniform. Whereas Web designers did not exist 15 years ago, the work of a veterinarian has not changed much with the exception of new technology used to provide medical care. This problem of variability in some of the data can be solved for the most part by investing the funds necessary to keep standardized assessments and aggregate information up to date.

The second potential problem with standardized career assessments and aggregate career information from multiple sources is that a standardized assessment represents someone else's construction of reality, and reality needs to be constructed by each individual on the individual's own terms. Standardized assessments and aggregate career information developed from someone else's experience can be misused by individuals who uncritically accept what they read, especially when they want quick and simple answers to complex problems. Allowing or encouraging individuals to use assessments and information in this way is certainly not good practice. Career assessments and career information should be used as one source of information, among other sources, to help individuals construct their perceptions of themselves and their opportunities in an informed and careful way within their social context.

Issues Related to Matching

Matching individuals with occupations or educational options has been identified as a component of the modern approach. Matching is sometimes criticized for the historical practice of the matching being done by the practitioner for the individual. Even in countries in which this practice was common in the past, practitioners and policy makers are now realizing that individuals need to learn how to make their own decisions if they are to remain employable because lifetime employment is no longer the norm. Matching has also been criticized for stressing a simplistic, point-in-time approach that ignores intuition, the developmental nature of career choice, and the influence of social context on decision making. In this case, however, matching is not the problem. The problem is using matching as the primary focus of career assistance and tailing to incorporate the use of information from multiple sources to generate potential options, as well as failing to deal with other important contextual variables.

Matching is a process, not an event. It is conceptualized as a recursive, evolutionary process in which matches are made, evaluated, and then discarded or kept, as part of a sequence of decisions made over a lifetime. Matching should be viewed as helping individuals use a balance of rational and intuitive processes to create a meaningful understanding of the ongoing choices they make while encouraging an awareness of the positive and negative social forces, including significant others, that influence their decisions (Sampson, 2008; Sampson, Reardon, Peterson, & Lenz, 2004).

Matching still has merit as an aid to career decision making. However, practitioners need to conceptualize matching from a broader perspective: helping individuals understand that matching is best used as a stimulus for exploration as opposed to providing the answer. Doing a better job of helping individuals develop appropriate expectations about the intended outcome of the matching process is imperative for practitioners. The profession must avoid "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" just because some career practitioners conceptualize matching very narrowly or are not effective at helping individuals understand the recursive nature of the matching process.

Issues Related to the Cost-Effectiveness of Career Interventions

The cost-effectiveness of career interventions is an increasingly important issue if practitioners are to maintain the funding for services that are necessary to meet individuals' needs. Practitioners must ask themselves vital questions: "Who are we responsible for as career practitioners? Are we responsible only for the clients who come through our doors, or are we responsible for the citizens in our society who need help with career choices?" Blustein, McWhirter, and Perry (2005) reminded the profession of the social justice aspects of its work and its responsibility to address inequity in society. The responsibility of career practitioners is to the citizens who need help and not just to those clients who present themselves at their doorsteps. According to a survey conducted by The Gallup Organization for the National Career Development Association, "Seven in ten adults (69%) report, if they were starting over, they would try to get more information about the job and career options open to them than they got the first time" (The Gallup Organization, 1999, p. 3). The best way of helping citizens to make informed and careful career choices is to maximize the cost-effectiveness of career resources and services (Sampson, 2008).

Using the limited funding for career resources and services wisely is essential. Providing individual counseling to everyone who requests help is simply not possible with the funds available. If one were to divide the number of individuals who need help in making career choices by the number of practitioners available to provide individual counseling, one would realize that, clearly, not enough practitioners exist to fill the need. What is to be done about those individuals who do not have access to the help they need?

Progress has been made in establishing the effectiveness of career interventions in relation to their costs and benefits. Data are available on the outcomes of career interventions (Bowes, Smith, & Morgan, 2005; Brown & Krane, 2000; Folsom & Reardon, 2003; Hughes & Gration, 2006; Kidd & Killeen, 1992; Killeen, 1996; Oliver & Spokane, 1988; Spokane & Oliver, 1983; Whiston, 2002; Whiston, Sexton, & Lasoff, 1998). Examining costs by level of career intervention (Reardon, 1996) is especially important in determining the appropriateness of interventions in relation to the available funding. Data are also available on the economic and social benefits of these interventions (Hughes, Bosley, Bowes, & Bysshe, 2002; Killeen, White, & Watts, 1992; Mayston, 2002). Whiston (2002) noted that "there may be increased interest and support for career counseling interventions if researchers can demonstrate that there are economic benefits to career interventions" (p. 231). Career practitioners need to address this issue or face the consequences of losing funding to other professions that better document the value gained from the financial resources they are given.

Using postmodern assessments, such as card sorts, and postmodern interventions, such as narrative techniques, can be effective. However, practitioners can afford to use such time-consuming (and therefore expensive) resources and services only for those individuals who are not likely to benefit from briefer, less expensive interventions because of their extensive needs.

Practitioners need to determine which interventions, either modern or postmodern, work best with which individuals and in which settings. Differences in decisiveness, personality, culture, verbal ability, learning styles, language skills, disability status, and so forth can make a specific career intervention effective for one individual and ineffective for another. Practitioners need to improve the cost-effectiveness of career interventions by using career resources and services that are most likely to be helpful at the lowest possible cost. This strategy allows practitioners to maximize the number of individuals who can be served in ways that meet their needs.

Integrating Modern and Postmodern Career Theory, Research, and Practice

The test-and-tell career intervention that has sometimes been associated with the modern approach is as bad a practice today as it was 50 years ago. Criticizing the modern approach on the basis of what poorly trained, inadequately supervised, and overworked practitioners do is unfair. Those in the profession should not compare the best practice of the postmodern approach with the worst practice of the modern approach.

Individuals seek assistance with career choices, and those practitioners who seek to help these individuals need to understand and apply an approach that integrates modernism and postmodernism. The stakes are too high for theorists, researchers, and practitioners to assert that one approach is uniformly superior. Both points of view have merit and can be integrated in practice. A well-practiced modern approach is still viable, and a well-practiced postmodern approach has much to offer. Both approaches can also be improved over time. Practitioners need to create cost-effective career services that combine the best of both approaches if they are to serve the large number of citizens who need help in making career choices.

The divorce between theorists, researchers, and practitioners espousing modern and postmodern approaches is unnecessary. Understanding and valuing each approach for its unique contributions is important. Practitioners need to use career interventions that work, irrespective of their philosophical underpinnings. Policy makers who provide the funding for career interventions need to conclude that practitioners are making socially responsible use of the funding they have been given.

It is crucial that the profession understand how the integration of modern and postmodern career theory can help the career practitioner in the Workforce Oklahoma One-Stop Career Center in Shawnee, Oklahoma, on a Friday at 3:30 in the afternoon who has three individuals waiting to be seen. How can the profession integrate these approaches to better prepare this practitioner to help the man who states that he has lost his job and does not know what to do?

References

Blustein, D. L., McWhirter, E. H., & Perry, J. C. (2005). An emancipatory communication approach to vocational development theory, research, and practice. Counseling Psychologist, 33, 141-179.

Bowes, L., Smith, D., & Morgan, S. (2005). Reviewing the evidence base for careers work in schools (iCeGS Occasional Paper). Derby, England: University of Derby, International Centre for Guidance Studies.

Brown, S. D., & Krane, N. E. R. (2000). Four (or five) sessions and a cloud of dust: Old assumptions and new observations about career counseling. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Handbook of counseling psychology (3rd ed., pp. 740-766). New York: Wiley.

Folsom, B., & Reardon, R. (2003). College career courses: Design and accountability. Journal of Career Assessment, 11, 421-450.

The Gallup Organization. (1999). National survey of working America, 1999. Retrieved June 5, 2009, from National Career Development Association Web site: http://associationdatabase.com/aws/NCDA/asset_manager/get_file/3407/ nedareport.pdf

Hughes, D., Bosley, S., Bowes, L., & Bysshe, S. (2002). The economic benefits of guidance (iCeGS Research Report Series No. 3). Derby, England: University of Derby, International Centre for Guidance Studies.

Hughes, D., & Gration, G. (2006). Performance indicators and benchmarks in career guidance in the United Kingdom (iCeGS Occasional Paper). Derby, England: University of Derby, International Centre for Guidance Studies.

Kidd, J. M., & Killeen, J. (1992). Are the effects of careers guidance worth having? Changes in practice and outcomes. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 65,219-234.

Killeen, J. (1996). The learning and economic outcomes of guidance. In A. G. Watts, B. Law, J. Killeen, J. M. Kidd, & R. Hawthorn (Eds.), Rethinking careers education and guidance: Theory, policy and practice (pp. 46-58). London: Routledge.

Killeen, J., White, M., & Watts, A. G. (1992). The economic value of careers guidance. London: Policy Studies Institute.

Mayston, D. (2002). Assessing the benefits of careers guidance (iCeGS Occasional Paper). Derby, England: University of Derby, International Centre for Guidance Studies.

Oliver, L. W., & Spokane, A. R. (1988). Career-intervention outcome: What contributes to client gain? Journal of Counseling Psychology, 35, 447-462.

Reardon, R. (1996). A program and cost analysis of a self-directed career decision-making program in a university career center. Journal of Counseling & Development, 74, 280-285.

Sampson, J. P., Jr. (2008). Designing and implementing career programs: A handbook for effective practice. Broken Arrow, OK: National Career Development Association.

Sampson, J. P., Jr., Reardon, R. C, Peterson, G. W., & Lenz, J. G. (2004). Career counseling and services: A cognitive information processing approach. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Brooks/Cole.

Spokane, A. R., & Oliver, L. W. (1983). The outcomes of vocational intervention. In W. B. Walsh & S. H. Osipow (Eds.), Handbook of vocational psychology (pp. 99-136). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Whiston, S. C. (2002). Application of the principles: Career counseling and interventions. Counseling Psychologist, 30, 218-237.

Whiston, S. C, Sexton, T. L., & Lasoff, D. L. (1998). Career-intervention outcome: A replication and extension of Oliver and Spokane. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 45, 150-165.

James P. Sampson Jr.

James P. Sampson Jr., Psychological Services in Education Program, Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems, Florida State University. Emily Bullock, Jill Cooley, Sarah Hartley, Janet Lenz, Bob Reardon, Lauren Sampson, Sandy Sampson, Jon Shy, and Tony Watts provided valuable assistance in developing this article. An earlier version was presented at the 2005 annual conference of the National Career Development Association in Orlando, Florida, during the "Modern and Post-Modern Career Theories: Considering a Synthesis for Practice" session chaired by S. G. Niles. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to James P. Sampson Jr., Psychological Services in Education Program, Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems, College of Education, Florida State University, 307 Stone Building, Tallahassee, FL 32306 (e-mail: [e-mail]).