The term career exploration also suffers from varying definitions and interpretations. At different times and by different authors and projects, career exploration can mean a life stage, a process, a program, outcomes of processes and programs, or a goal. The purpose of this paper is to discuss several definitions and offer a viable interpretation of career exploration for the middle/junior high school level.
Various Meanings
Career exploration has often been defined as a life stage in vocational development literature. The importance of exploration in career development theory was first stated by Ginzberg (1951), when they discuss it as a sub-stage of their realistic stage of vocational development. Super (1957) gives credit to Buehler for his formulation of the developmental life stages of career development and indicates that the exploration stage involves the years of fifteen to about twenty-four.
When career exploration is considered as process, emphasis is on the dynamics involved and the evolving nature of exploration. Writers holding this view feel that it is important at the early and mid-adolescent years to pursue occupational and educational information in a process of vocational exploration. Evans (1973) asserts that: "It (career education) is a process through which this exploration can occur so far as productive achievement, career choice, and career performance are concerned." Jordaan views career exploration as being essentially problem-solving behavior. The nature of the process by which the learner arrives at new knowledge and discovery determines whether or not it is exploratory. This position will be discussed later.
Career exploration can be considered a program when the emphasis is on the features-that is, personnel, strategies, learning activities, or evaluation procedures-involved. Budke (1971) provides such a definition:
Career exploration can be considered outcomes when emphasis is placed on observable behaviors resulting from conscious or unconscious acts by the learner. Here, significance may be on changed behaviors regarding the developmental tasks associated with vocational development. These outcomes may be the results of a planned program as advocated above. Concern is not so much with the dynamics of the processes as with particular outcomes being observed and studied.
Finally, career exploration may be a goal statement for a teacher, administrator, school system, state or regional system, or an organization. Such an influence is expressed by Kapes (1971): "Exploration, then, is the appropriate emphasis for education in the middle schools and junior high schools."
Middle School Role
Recent interest in career exploration experiences by educators is due, in part, to knowledge of the developmental nature of vocationally relevant decisions and behaviors. In fact, the school has been described as the single most important exploratory institution. After an extensive review of career education programs reported in the literature, Evans et al., 1973, concluded an "almost universal agreement exists on viewing the middle/junior-high school years as concentrating on career exploration activities." Budke determined that career exploration programs at the junior high school level are both the most numerous and highly developed.
Expertise in providing career exploratory programs by middle/junior high schools is understandable since this was one of the original tenets for the formation of junior high schools in America. More recently, the middle school concept is postulating that this is the proper time when student responsibilities can be related directly to consequences of the decisions they made. According to Evans et al., social and sexual roles and skills are the only middle/junior high school concerns outranking career considerations, and these same authors declare that omission of the elements of career education at this level means the institution is neglecting its duty. Career exploration programs in middle/junior high schools answer the need for systematic strategies for occupational information and exploration permitting preadolescent learners to gradually and methodically assess and evaluate their interests, aptitudes, values, and abilities in relation to the world of work.
Career education programs in schools vary considerably in nature.
Overall, present career education programs at the middle/junior high school level stress occupational exploration at the expense of self-exploration in relation to work roles. Of primary concern at this level is the integration of vocational values and information into the school curriculum along with the relationship between subject matter content and careers. Career development literature is providing educators with propositions and principles for the organization and structuring of career exploration learning activities. Career exploration learning activities, thus designed, will purposely utilize various stimuli and information regarding work and work roles in order "to perpetuate a continuing clarification of self, including one's needs, interests, attitudes, values, and work role perceptions and competencies (Tennyson, 1973)."
Exploration as Problem Solving
Jordaan (1963) provides the most extensive presentation of exploratory behaviors in relation to self and career-oriented behaviors. He claims that exploratory behaviors not only modify but play a crucial role in shaping the way in which a person thinks about himself and about the world of work. Exploratory behavior is not only physical; it can be purely mental activity. Similarly, a person may or may not realize that he is exploring. According to Jordaan, such exploration is multidimensional; any given behavior could be placed in several continua. He provides ten such continua.
The most important contribution of Jordaan is his criteria for assessing when learner behaviors are exploratory or not. To differentiate exploration from orientation, he concluded that such behaviors must be problem solving in nature. Behaviors can be considered exploratory only when they involve the qualities of search, investigation, trial, experimentation, and hypothesis testing. Thus, exploration need not take place in a vocational setting to be vocationally relevant; for example, exploration could easily involve library research about a personally meaningful career topic.
Summary
In sum, we can say that career exploration is a term used to describe any one or combination of the following: a life stage, processes, programs, outcomes, or goals. The middle/junior high school years are widely accepted for providing careful exploration activities aimed at allowing preadolescent learners to systematically assess their interests, aptitudes, and skills relative to the work world. Student exploratory behaviors in regard to self and occupational concepts are best denoted by their inclusion of problem solving of hypothesis testing.
