PSYC 300 - Key Terms And Study Questions
With Complete Solutions
Career - ANSWER Roles individuals play over their lifetime OR the lifetime
pursuits of the individual.
Career Choice - ANSWER Decisions that individuals make at any point in their
career about particular work, leisure, or other activities that they choose to
pursue at that time.
Job - ANSWER Positions requiring similar skills within one organization.
Occupation - ANSWER Similar jobs found in many organizations.
Work - ANSWER Purposeful activity to earn money or other reward and possibly
to produce a product or service for others.
Theory - ANSWER A group of logically organized laws or relationships that
constitute explanation in a discipline.
1. Theories should be explicit about their rules and theorems.
2. Theories should be precise about the limitations of their predictions.
3. When developed, theories need to be tested.
4. Theories need to be consistent and clear.
On a time line, note some of the historical developments that have influenced the
evolution of career counselling. - ANSWER 1. Connecting people with
appropriate jobs began as early as the 15th century.
2. Employment counselling began in the 20th century.
3. Beginning of 20th century, society/culture were influenced by immigration,
urbanization and industrialization. Workers were exploited.
4. Middle class began to develop as a reasonably educated and well-off but not
wealthy group.
5. Frank Parsons founded the Vocational Guidance Bureau in Boston in 1908.
First vocational guidance services offered by non-profit organizations.
,6. Early 1900's the need for vocational guidance in schools was recognized in
Canada. The Employment Service of Canada began in 1918 and during the
1920's and 1930's it worked to match people to jobs.
7. WW2 changed Canada's economy and applied psychology and vocational
counselling took off (effective placement of recruits).
8. After the war, the Canadian Gov't spent millions to help veterans find suitable
employment on their return.
How have the changing definitions of career and career development mirrored
the evolution of the discipline of career development? - ANSWER At the
beginning of the 1900s, when vocational guidance was in its infancy, the terms
career, vocation, and occupation were often used interchangeably. Since that
time, the concept of a career has been broadened significantly and has been
influenced by various theoretical positions.
Donald Super helped re-conceptualize career as being a life-span concept that
includes paid and unpaid work and leisure activities. Constructivist theories
highlight the importance of the individual personal experience of working life.
Career Development has two meanings; it relates to all the factors that influence
an individual's career behaviour, and the term is used to refer to the practical
activities (career counselling) that are intended to help people with career
decision-making and adjustments.
Career choice applies to decisions that individuals make at any point in their
career about particular work, leisure, or other activities that they choose to
pursue at that time.
Job: positions requiring similar skills within one organization.
Occupation: similar jobs found in many organizations.
Why is it important to take the socio-cultural context into account when
evaluating career development theories? - ANSWER As you read about theories
and theorists, be aware of the socio-cultural contexts of their times. This will
help to explain the biases and assumptions of various theories and the necessity
for Sharf to include separate sections with subjects such as "Applying the
Theory to Women" and "Applying the Theory to Culturally Diverse Populations"
at the end of each chapter of your textbook. When many of these theories were
first proposed (in the 1940s and 1950s), most women were not employed outside
the home, and the civil rights movement was yet to come. As such, career
development theories tended to focus on the career development of Caucasian
men.
, What are the four trends that Herr (2001) identifies as being influential in the
career development field? List and briefly describe each in a couple of
sentences. Have any of these trends influenced you in your work or in your day-
to-day life? - ANSWER
What is a theory? What is a proposition? What are the different ways in which the
constructs of a theory can be presented? - ANSWER Jepsen (1996) describes
four different ways in which the arguments of a social science theory can be
presented:
1. Logical propositions.
2. observable propositions.
3. Metaphors.
4. Stories.
In the natural sciences, findings can be described as laws. These are accurate
statements that can be used to predict and that hold true in a variety of
situations. However, theories in the social sciences are made up of propositions
rather than laws. A proposition is a statement that holds true most of the time.
Unlike a law, there are always exceptions to propositions.
List seven criteria that can be used to evaluate the career development theories
presented in this course. - ANSWER 1. Theories should be explicit about their
rules and theorems. Terms that are used in describing these rules should be
clear.
2. Theories should be precise about the limitations of their predictions. Theories
differ in the breadth of behavior that they attempt to predict.
3. When theories are developed, they need to be tested. Therefore, good
theories should have a body of research that supports their propositions. This
research should be both quantitative (expressed statistically) and qualitative.
Note that this comment differs from Sharf (2013), who states that supporting
research should be "expressed in terms of quantitative relationships" (p. 4). This
comment is surprising, since it is commonly accepted that both quantitative and
qualitative methods are valid.
4. A theory needs to be consistent and clear.
The following questions posed by Osipow and Fitzgerald (1996) can be added to
the above list to aid evaluation: how general is the theory, and what is its range
of applicability? (A good theory is relatively general and applicable in a range of
situations.) Does the theory lead to new ways of understanding the phenomenon
in question? How easy to use are the constructs of the theory? In other words,
how easy is it to put the theory into practice?
With Complete Solutions
Career - ANSWER Roles individuals play over their lifetime OR the lifetime
pursuits of the individual.
Career Choice - ANSWER Decisions that individuals make at any point in their
career about particular work, leisure, or other activities that they choose to
pursue at that time.
Job - ANSWER Positions requiring similar skills within one organization.
Occupation - ANSWER Similar jobs found in many organizations.
Work - ANSWER Purposeful activity to earn money or other reward and possibly
to produce a product or service for others.
Theory - ANSWER A group of logically organized laws or relationships that
constitute explanation in a discipline.
1. Theories should be explicit about their rules and theorems.
2. Theories should be precise about the limitations of their predictions.
3. When developed, theories need to be tested.
4. Theories need to be consistent and clear.
On a time line, note some of the historical developments that have influenced the
evolution of career counselling. - ANSWER 1. Connecting people with
appropriate jobs began as early as the 15th century.
2. Employment counselling began in the 20th century.
3. Beginning of 20th century, society/culture were influenced by immigration,
urbanization and industrialization. Workers were exploited.
4. Middle class began to develop as a reasonably educated and well-off but not
wealthy group.
5. Frank Parsons founded the Vocational Guidance Bureau in Boston in 1908.
First vocational guidance services offered by non-profit organizations.
,6. Early 1900's the need for vocational guidance in schools was recognized in
Canada. The Employment Service of Canada began in 1918 and during the
1920's and 1930's it worked to match people to jobs.
7. WW2 changed Canada's economy and applied psychology and vocational
counselling took off (effective placement of recruits).
8. After the war, the Canadian Gov't spent millions to help veterans find suitable
employment on their return.
How have the changing definitions of career and career development mirrored
the evolution of the discipline of career development? - ANSWER At the
beginning of the 1900s, when vocational guidance was in its infancy, the terms
career, vocation, and occupation were often used interchangeably. Since that
time, the concept of a career has been broadened significantly and has been
influenced by various theoretical positions.
Donald Super helped re-conceptualize career as being a life-span concept that
includes paid and unpaid work and leisure activities. Constructivist theories
highlight the importance of the individual personal experience of working life.
Career Development has two meanings; it relates to all the factors that influence
an individual's career behaviour, and the term is used to refer to the practical
activities (career counselling) that are intended to help people with career
decision-making and adjustments.
Career choice applies to decisions that individuals make at any point in their
career about particular work, leisure, or other activities that they choose to
pursue at that time.
Job: positions requiring similar skills within one organization.
Occupation: similar jobs found in many organizations.
Why is it important to take the socio-cultural context into account when
evaluating career development theories? - ANSWER As you read about theories
and theorists, be aware of the socio-cultural contexts of their times. This will
help to explain the biases and assumptions of various theories and the necessity
for Sharf to include separate sections with subjects such as "Applying the
Theory to Women" and "Applying the Theory to Culturally Diverse Populations"
at the end of each chapter of your textbook. When many of these theories were
first proposed (in the 1940s and 1950s), most women were not employed outside
the home, and the civil rights movement was yet to come. As such, career
development theories tended to focus on the career development of Caucasian
men.
, What are the four trends that Herr (2001) identifies as being influential in the
career development field? List and briefly describe each in a couple of
sentences. Have any of these trends influenced you in your work or in your day-
to-day life? - ANSWER
What is a theory? What is a proposition? What are the different ways in which the
constructs of a theory can be presented? - ANSWER Jepsen (1996) describes
four different ways in which the arguments of a social science theory can be
presented:
1. Logical propositions.
2. observable propositions.
3. Metaphors.
4. Stories.
In the natural sciences, findings can be described as laws. These are accurate
statements that can be used to predict and that hold true in a variety of
situations. However, theories in the social sciences are made up of propositions
rather than laws. A proposition is a statement that holds true most of the time.
Unlike a law, there are always exceptions to propositions.
List seven criteria that can be used to evaluate the career development theories
presented in this course. - ANSWER 1. Theories should be explicit about their
rules and theorems. Terms that are used in describing these rules should be
clear.
2. Theories should be precise about the limitations of their predictions. Theories
differ in the breadth of behavior that they attempt to predict.
3. When theories are developed, they need to be tested. Therefore, good
theories should have a body of research that supports their propositions. This
research should be both quantitative (expressed statistically) and qualitative.
Note that this comment differs from Sharf (2013), who states that supporting
research should be "expressed in terms of quantitative relationships" (p. 4). This
comment is surprising, since it is commonly accepted that both quantitative and
qualitative methods are valid.
4. A theory needs to be consistent and clear.
The following questions posed by Osipow and Fitzgerald (1996) can be added to
the above list to aid evaluation: how general is the theory, and what is its range
of applicability? (A good theory is relatively general and applicable in a range of
situations.) Does the theory lead to new ways of understanding the phenomenon
in question? How easy to use are the constructs of the theory? In other words,
how easy is it to put the theory into practice?
