Abstract
Context: Career guidance has focused on promoting career readiness of young people, which has become a key factor in the guidance process of students. It requires schools to guide their practices towards the development of these aspects and to invest in career guidance. In this sense, the transference between science and practice is essential.
Approach: The present study aims to analyse the secondary students’ perceptions of the degree of usefulness of career guidance actions. Following a quantitative research methodology, an ad hoc questionnaire, linked to the dimensions experiencing, exploring and thinking about the future, was designed. It was applied in a pilot study to a sample of 351 students from five secondary schools in Asturias (Spain).
Findings: The results obtained indicate high degree of perception of the usefulness of activities related to the construct of experiencing the future. This is followed by a high degree of perceived usefulness of actions liked to exploration. In contrast, guidance actions linked to thinking about the future have lower scores. Analyses by gender show that there are no significant differences in perceptions. However, in the analysis by grade, it is observed that in the exploration variable, there are significant differences of these activities, second-grade students obtain lower perceptions of the usefulness of these activities.
Conclusions: In conclusion, the practical implications point to proportionate actions at three levels: guidance practitioners, schools and policymakers. Guidance improves when teachers plan regular guidance actions, when schools establish partnerships and when policymakers ensure accessible labour-market information, in order to provide students with opportunities to participate in professional experiences during secondary education.
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