In pursuit of the ideal career: Comparing barriers, supports, and values between honors and general college students

Previous research has indicated that the career counseling interventions typically used for college career exploration are less effective for gifted/honors students than for general students. Traditional career counseling focuses on helping individuals identify their interests and skills or abilities, then matches individuals to careers based on Holland's theory of person-environment fit. Those working with gifted clients have reported that the focus on interests and abilities is not particularly helpful to those students who have many strong interests and high abilities across a wide variety of domains. In these cases, it has been suggested that values clarification and self-efficacy exercises are more helpful for guidance of gifted students in making career choices.The current study explored differences in the perceived barriers, supports, and values between honors students and general college students using a combination of qualitative survey measures and qualitative individual interviews. The three survey measures were chosen to represent three variables of interest: the Perception of Barriers (POB) scale developed by McWhirter, a new support checklist developed from the results of a previous study by Lent and colleagues on career barriers and supports, and the Work Importance Locator (WIP), one of three career assessment instruments developed by the U.S. Dept. of Labor as part of the O*NET Project. The interview protocol was modeled on that used by Lent and colleagues supplemented by questions to additionally assess participants' values. Both quantitative and qualitative results supported the idea that there are significant differences between the two groups on each of the three variables. Implications for practice and recommendations for future research are included.Additional research has also been done to explore the career trajectories of students identified early in life as having high potential for academic ability, or gifted. Previous studies have documented that many of these students who demonstrated high grades and test scores in junior high and high school do not pursue the ideal careers that they report in late adolescence. Many declare interests in challenging, high prestige careers and enter college majors that would support these dreams. However, many do not complete their intended fields of study and experience significant changes in career direction.