Uncertainty About Career Development

Uncertainty about career development is a pervasive and normal phenomenon in college students.According to Career Chaos Theory(CCT),phase chang in career development is absolute but certainty is relative.A lot of things can not be accurately predicted,there is no need for stereotypes in pursuit of the "certainty",but people have the complex of determination.In this study,uncertainty about career development(UACD) will be defined as the uncontrollable and unpredictable mental experience about career development which is full of chaos and complexity,as well as some kind of career beliefs,emotion,attitudes and exploration behaviors;it is an integrated mental and behavioral systems,with the surface and deep structure;the surface structure is related to career choices,but the deep structure is associated with the pursuit of life meaning.In the perspective of CTT,the current career guidance should not only be addicted to the understanding about self and workplace,or planning and decision-making skills training;to explore the life meaning and some spiritual need is also important.Past research in this field focused on "information(self and vocational)" and "decision-making" level,based on Parsons's matching paradigm;through the assessment of personality traits,vocational interest,aptitudes and the training of decision-making skills,try to help the client make an optimum choice.According to CTT,career development is filled with mutation,transformation,fractal,initial sensitivity,attractors and any other non-linear characteristics,so we should not over-emphasize the absolute cause and effect,rely on "pure logical reasoning " to predict the future,but the personal construct perspective may be more useful and effective. Specifically,this study want to explore a new career counseling approach from the perspective of "meta-cognition",in the view that the key to career counseling is "cultivate the awareness and ability of adaptability",that is,by changing the irrational career beliefs,shaping one's spiritual life to cope with chaos,negative uncertainty can be leaded to positive uncertainty.Traditional study of career guidance focus in the knowledge and decision-making level,which require the lead of "meta-cognition" for effective implementation,if only to stay in the knowledge and decision-making level,it is difficult to cope with career uncertainty effectively and can not reach positive direction.In this study,the meaning and value is a more fundamental level of strain on career uncertainty.So that students can get far-reaching perspective of career development to set aside enough psychological space,a flexible,rational and positive psychological qualities,a good adaptation of his status,in order to promote the quality of "destiny."According to its objects,this study belongs to vocational(occupational) psychology;according to its target groups,it is in the scope of youth psychology. Specially,this study was to examine the "uncertainty about career development (UACD)" experienced by Chinese college students who are in the stage of emerging adulthood;to analyze its symptom types,cause and how to cope with this psychological phenomenon in CTT perspective.With four major studies:Studyâ… made use of the self-reported career feelings as the test items to develop the "college students' career status inventory",then used this inventory to measure the different kind of UACD.The goal of Studyâ…¡was to find out the career beliefs that made college students in trouble.To explore their deep cognitive cause and some mental complex so as to get the right method to obtain rational career beliefs.Studyâ…¢tried to evaluate the competency model of career adaptability.Career spirituality is the vital characteristics with which one can cope with uncertainty positively.So through career counseling we should help clients get this mental and behavioral model.Studyâ…£used some metaphor and spiritual counseling techniques to promote college students' cognitive openness,made them renew the viewpoint about uncertainty, so as to release the symptom,positively accept,create and make use of the uncertainty.This study used some qualitative and quantitative methods such as literature review, theoretical thinking,open-questionnaire survey,structured questionnaires test,grid technology and heuristic metaphor to get the accurate description,interpretation and intervention to its research issues.There are nine conclusions: 1.According to college students' cognitive differentiation and integration,the symptom of UACD can be divided into four typical statuses,such as the "lost", "impulsive","just temporary" and "good consideration",and there are more subtypes.2.Different career feelings may reflect the type of career uncertainty,so we can measure the UACD by get the information about one's career feelings.3.College students' UACD performance has some difference in gender,grade, major,and district.4.College students have thirteen typical career beliefs,including "successful blindly","ignore the planning"," path-set ","role-set","blind optimism","perfect matching","job first","dependent","decision-making closure","workplace mirage", "test-dependent","absolutely sure" and "gender stereotypes".These beliefs show high and low score pole's irrational characteristics that may affect the status of career adaptability and may be a major source of maladjustment.5.College students of different UACD type have the different status spectrum in career beliefs.The "lost" and "impulsive" show more irrational career beliefs,a higher cognitive closure and some perfectionist tendencies.6.College students have some positive potential traits for career adaptability, manifested in the five dimensions of career spirituality,which are "open and flexible", "search for meaning","practical action","open-minded optimism" and "persistent tenacity".7.College students of different UACD type have the different status spectrum in career spirituality,such difference indicate that career guidance should change according to different people.8.Career counseling techniques in the effort of enhance clients' cognitive openness and flexibility can make one's irrational career beliefs get some positive change.9.Counseling college students who have irrational career beliefs can use some synchronicity or spirituality-oriented techniques;it is effective to promote one's openness and flexibility.In short,career guidance is not a simple three-step process;it is a complicated and fantastic course.We should both pay attention to the personal qualities and occupational information;it is necessary to have knowledge about the real world and use the intelligence to explore the possibility of life,to care about human's well-being deeply. Here,what we can do is to cultivate openness,ability to tolerate ambiguity,sensitivity to change,optimism and positive action as well as ultimate spirituality.