vocational choice, in vocational psychology dictionary

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Dictionary of Vocational Psychology

Vocational Choice

The result of making a career decision. It is a generic term for any broad decision that orients an individual toward a particular job, occupational, or career goal. Such a choice may be fleeting or permanent, and may be only an intention or may be put into action.

Some theories of career development--such as Holland's (1997) theory of vocational choice--focus on vocational choice as a central construct. Other theories may refer to the construct by other names, such as "career decision-making" or "career choice" or "occupational choice." What these theories have in common is the believe that the choice process involves some degree of selection of one option from a set of alternative courses. The theories vary in the degree to which such choice need be rational, freely made, or even consciously made.

Vocational psychologists have considered the question of what might constitute a minimum theory of vocational choice, although none have referred to the issue as such. In philosophy of science, theorists frequently attempt to determine what might constitute "minimum" theories of various areas, stripping away potentially unnecessary theoretical structures so as to ultimately arrive at the bare nubbins of an absolutely bare minimum account of the construct of interest. Gati's various accounts of various possible decision-making methods probably comes nearest to the mark here; some of his proposed methods are in a sense more minimal than others. Other theorists, such as Holland, have proposed theories in which basic career decisions may be made with some basic mechanism, with the nature of such choices elaborated through a set of additional mechanisms.

At minimum, a theory of vocational choice would presumably require only three elements: (1) a cognitive structure within which more than one possible course of future career progression may be represented, such that particular features of such options may be represented, without necessarily being common features across each option; (2) a cognitive function through which a choice amongst such options may be made, through some means, possibly based on the particular features of the various options; and (3) a cognitive structure capable of retaining and preserving information about the choice made, such that such information could be made available for future application and guidance of behavior. However, just because philosophically such a theory might be a minimum description of vocational choice does not mean that this is what we actually do in practice. In all likelihood, more complexity is required to adequately capture the process.

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