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The impact of student characteristics and students' attitude towards coaching on self-directed learning and career identity in vocational education

Buschers, L. (2015) The impact of student characteristics and students' attitude towards coaching on self-directed learning and career identity in vocational education.

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Abstract:In order to meet the constantly changing demands of the labor market it is important that, already during their vocational education, students learn to direct their own learning and begin to form their career identity. Self-directed learning (SDL) refers to the behavior to independently steer towards your own learning goals. Career identity (CI) is a cognitive concept, and means knowing who you are, which job fits you and knowing if you can be the person you want to be in your future job. To support students to direct their own learning and develop a stronger career identity, nowadays schools for vocational education have set up coaching programs in which teachers are expected to offer students career guidance. In these programs, coaching sessions are an important element. Because almost all teachers are expected to coach students, it is questionable whether every teacher is suitable for this role. In this study, the focus is not only on the impact of coaching sessions on SDL and CI, but also on the influence of the quality of the coach. In particular, the student perspective on coaching is investigated, because students should benefit from the coaching and the coaching should help them to learn more self-directed in career processes and develop a stronger career identity. In addition, it was investigated to what extent student characteristics influenced SDL and CI. There is made a distinction between demographic characteristics and study-related characteristics. Using quantitative data, in this study the relationship between student characteristics and SDL and CI was examined. To discover whether coaching influences this relationship, it was investigated if coaching acted as a mediating factor. This study was based on data collected in the study of Brandenburg (2014), who did research among students from the Dutch vocation educational institute Landstede. From the results it can be concluded that coaching had a positive effect on both self-directed learning in career and forming a career identity, although the influence on self-directed learning in career was larger than the influence on career identity. It also appeared that there was a relation between some student characteristics and SDL and CI. This means that schools should take into account that students are different and therefore may have different needs.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:81 education, teaching
Programme:Educational Science BSc (56613)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/68414
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