Social Change Discussion

 

 

Shiana Robertson

Values and beliefs are often embedded in our everyday decision-making and are often the driving force behind the decisions we make. In career counseling, our values allow us the opportunity to evaluate careers and work environments that support what is most important to us. As a career counselor, it is important to bring awareness to the impact or influence of one’s values on career choice and development. The use of card sorts, a qualitative approach, can be useful in exploring career values associated with careers.

Description of What Happened During the Card Sort

For this card sort, I began by explaining to the volunteer client how values and beliefs impact what we believe is important in a career. I explained that the card sort activity is a qualitative assessment that will provide an opportunity to explore which values of a career and work environment are most important, important, and not important. After the sorting process, the client sorted the top eight cards in the most important category in descending order of importance. With this information, we discussed how the selected career values align with careers of interest. In this discussion, the client volunteer realized that the top values were a good match for her career interest based on her outgoing personality and her commitment to her family.

Reflections on my Experience and my Observations of my Volunteer

I found this card sort to be very intriguing. For me, the discussion piece was important to understand the client’s values. Although the cards show different values, the level of importance will vary depending on the client. While it was easy for me to administer the card sort assessment, I found that observing the client was the most impactful. I observed the client engaging in critical thinking and really analyzing which values were most important, particularly when they were asked to select the top five career values. Lastly, the client gained insight from the card sort that supported her personality style and ability to maintain a lifestyle that is conducive to her personal values.

Differences Between Quantitative and Qualitative Assessments

I believe that both quantitative and qualitative assessments serve a purpose based on the desired outcome. Quantitative assessment is valuable when there is a need for numerical data or to analyze a trend over time. Qualitative data, in my opinion, allows for insight when working with a client. It is information that speaks to the thoughts and feelings of the client. I do believe that qualitative data is more subjective because it leaves more room to interpret based on biases, feelings, or emotions. Quantitative data often has metrics that have been “tried and tested” and leave little margin of error.

Conclusion

In conclusion, using qualitative assessments allows the client and counselor to explore how values and beliefs can influence career decisions. Engaging in qualitative assessments allows for a deeper conversation and a better understanding of the client’s thoughts and feelings.(

2Main Post from Ariel Gonzalez

Values play a significant role in our lives, including our career decision-making process. Values and beliefs can be instilled in us throughout various milestones, significantly impacting our outlook on life. When addressing work values, Brown (1996, as cited in Hirschi, 2010) determined that individuals define work values as values that should be fulfilled through their occupational work. Exploring and identifying personal work values can aid in proper guidance to an occupation that provides a sense of gratification and satisfaction. Career counselors can use the values card sort method to help provide a foundation for an individual’s work values. In the post, I will identify the values card sort activity with a volunteer, my reflections on the activity, and the differences between quantitative and qualitative assessments.

Description of What Happened During the Card Sort

Prior to the values card sort activity, I informed my volunteer about the purpose and potential outcome of the activity, which were agreed to during the discussion. I initially prefaced our conversation by creating a dialogue about values and work values to determine what each meant to him. Initially, he had shared that he was experiencing burnout with his current job and was excited to explore new ideas that may cause a career shift. Before I handed him the orange Post-it notes, I shared that his task was to sort each note into the category, most important, sometimes important, or not important. I proceeded to hand him the notes, and he seemingly enjoyed placing each note in the respective category and reflecting on why he is unhappy at his current job as his current most important values were not important to him ten years ago. At the end of the sorting activity, my volunteer and I completed the career values worksheet together, which incited fruitful conversations about work ethics and values. He shared that he had recently been considering careers that aligned with the identified values but did not pursue a different occupation due to fear of change. My volunteer shared that he drives an hour to and from work in rush hour traffic, which is not conducive to his mental health. After more reflection on his decision to categorize location in the most important category, he determined that a career that he was considering was significantly closer to his home. Location was important to him since he is currently unable to attend any of his children’s after-school sports activities due to traffic.

Reflections on my Experience and my Observations of my Volunteer

The card sort activity was insightful and inspiring. Conducting the experience was exciting as I observed my volunteer’s reactions regarding his work/life balance now and what he hopes to change if he decides to change careers. Additionally, I was thankful that my volunteer was engaging and open-minded when completing his task. He shared helpful feedback about how the activity should be acknowledged more and potentially completed every five or ten years, as an individual’s values may change with experiences endured in the workforce. I also shared insight about how this activity can be implemented in classrooms, and he agreed.

Differences Between Quantitative and Qualitative Assessments

Quantitative and qualitative assessment tools offer various types of support in the career counseling profession. Whiston & Rahardja (2005) noted that qualitative assessments could be useful methods regarding diversity in career assessment as narratives and dialogues can support the purpose of the assessment. Conversely, quantitative assessments typically use a numerical value to be analyzed. Therefore, my insight on the differences between each method is that a qualitative assessment tool, the least commonly used in the counseling profession, can be used to verbally express opinions. In contrast, the quantitative assessment tool, most widely used in our profession, uses an approach to define a numerical value. Additionally, Patton (2000, as cited in Whiston & Rahardja, 2005) determined that more counseling professionals are also resorting to qualitative assessment methods in their practice.

Conclusion

Engaging in an activity such as a values card sort can allow for fruitful discussions about an individual’s career development. The experience can be beneficial for the individual completing the activity and the individual conducting it as it can organically provide a fruitful conversation and outlook on a person’s work values. The experience can also allow a career counselor to guide the individual with careers that would best align with their values, beliefs, and identity. Furthermore, career counselors can determine if a quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-method assessment approach would best serve the client depending on the necessary information needed. Overall, after conducting the qualitative card sort assessment with my volunteer, I found that it was an engaging activity that brought light to an individual’s career path.