The problem with which this study is concerned is an investigation of the feasibility of using a questionnaire for determining perceived needs of students to improve the planning and programming process in student development in higher education. The study was designed to accomplish two purposes: to examine the feasibility of such an approach and to present an example of how such a study can be accomplished. The study concludes: a perceived needs survey can be accomplished with minimal difficulty and is effective in improving planning; documented student need should provide the bias for determining service philosophy and for planning student development programs for all students and for student subgroups; documented student need and preference should provide the basis for determining times of service offerings and staff utilization and deciding on methods of publicizing programs; the use of the perceived needs survey should reduce planning time.

Career psychology in South Africa has traditionally been constituted by assessment methods, counselling practices and research objectives of a modernist-positivist paradigm. This paradigm has been limited in its consideration and integration of the broad range of contextual factors that may influence the career development of individuals. This study is based on the Systems Theory Framework of career development, an overarching theoretical framework of career development that is able to acknowledge the complexity of career development processes and assist in engaging with contexts of that complexity. Seven Xhosa-speaking Black South African female university students were invited to story their career development within their unique individual contexts. In collaborating with the participants, the study adopted an exploratory collective case study research design. The My Systems of Career Influences reflection process was primarily used to obtain the qualitative data. Based on the need that arose in the career counselling process, the quantitative data were generated from the Values Scale (VS), the Life Roles Inventory (LRI), the Commitment to Career Choices Scale (CCCS), and the Jung Personality Questionnaire (JPQ). The study is particularly relevant given the growing need for the development of non-discriminatory career assessment and counselling collaborations between counsellors and clients who need to navigate unique and diverse South African contexts. Key words: career counselling, career development, constructivism, My System of Career Influences (MSCI), narrative career counselling, qualitative career assessment, South African female university students, storytelling approach, Systems Theory Framework (STF).

This study compares the official and the ideal duties and responsibilities of the director of international student affairs in selected institutions of higher education in the United States.

M.Ed. / Making a career choice is most probably one of the most important decisions any person, or school leaver, has to make. Research has shown that a large percentage of learners are not equipped to make the right career choice (Stead & Watson, 1999:169). It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that, as an Educational Psychologist, career guidance should be seen as a very sensitive process that should be handled with the utmost respect to ensure that the client’s needs are addressed through the process. Because we live in such a dynamic world that is constantly changing, it is important to make sure that the career guidance process keeps up with the latest trends. As the Trait-and-Factor Approach is being relied on very heavily, in the South African context, one must ask if this theory still fulfills all the career guidance needs in the modern age. Although Frank Parsons, the founder of this specific theory, was responsible for a great number of reforms in a modernist era, should we not look for a theory that leads us into a postmodernist era? When talking about a postmodernist time frame, it should be seen in its totality, not just in the information era, but also on a personal level for each individual as to recognise personal differences. Clients present more challenging needs and have greater expectations of a career in a very competitive market. It is, therefore, important for a counsellor, in a postmodernist era, to address these additional needs and to allow the client, not just to be a part of the process, but to make the process more beneficial, in all regards, to the client’s needs. This research study was aimed to describe students’ experiences of a career guidance and development programme. The students attended a bridging college for underprivileged students who had passed matric and were given the opportunity of increasing their mathematics and science marks. The students with the highest mark would then qualify for a bursary to attend a tertiary institute to further their studies in electronic engineering and information technology. The students were from the local area living in the townships and attending the local schools in the townships. There are two college campuses, one in Alberton and one in Boksburg, with fifteen students attending each campus. The students that are successful at the tertiary institute will be offered a position at the company supporting the college as a social upliftment programme for equal opportunity. It was decided to give the students who were attending the college the opportunity to go through a career guidance and development programme as they indicated that they had very little exposure to career guidance programmes while still at school. The programme that was used with the students was based on a constructivist approach using narratives. The programme consisted of a number of different tasks that the students had to do, in order to help them identify their own personal characteristics, and to identify their own values and interests. The knowledge they gained through these tasks helped them to construct a personal narrative. The clients themselves, at the end of the process, edited this narrative after having gone through and completed the process. Focus group interviews, as well as the students’ personal journals, where the different tasks were recorded and deliberated upon, were used as data collection methods. From the data that was collected, it was established that the students’ experience of the career guidance process, was very positive. The students also indicated that they had certain preconceived ideas of a career guidance process, but that they experienced this intervention programme as very insightful on a personal level, and it also made them more aware of their needs with regards to career guidance. The main themes that emerged during the research study were mainly on the students experience with regards to the career guidance processes and the process of self-discovery that was one of the aims of a constructivist approach using narratives. The students indicated that they enjoyed the programme, and that they had gained personally from the process.

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the availability and quality of student services offered to adult learners in selected continuing education programs in Dade County, Florida. The two basic research questions addressed in this study were: 1) What are the student services being provided to adult learners by the selected colleges and universities? 2) What is the quality of these services being provided as perceived by administrators and adult learners at their institutions? Two groups comprised the population for this study. One group sample of adult learners enrolled in credit courses being offered by the continuing education unit. The second group sample was comprised of administrators in the areas of Admissions, Financial Aid, Registration, Student Services and Continuing Education at each of the five colleges and universities in Dade County, Florida. Data were collected from 107 students and 25 administrators using the Continuing Education Student Services Questionnaire (CESSQ) developed by the researcher in a pilot study. The questionnaire, one for administrators and a similar one for adult learners, consisted of two parts. One consisted of eight demographic items and the second one of twenty items describing student services. An overview of responses by institutions showed that only the following services received a 100% response as available at one or more institutions: 1) Admissions Information, 2) Convenient Hours for Registration, 3) Assistance in Class Registration, 4) Assistance in Planning a Class Schedule, 5) Access to the Library in Evening and Weekends, 6) Parking and Security, 7) Food Services, 8) Bookstore and 9) Access to Computers.

Effective methods of selecting dormitory counselors are needed. Evaluation of such a selection process calls for determining if the selection procedure employed is sorting the applicant pool effectively and if the procedure is successful in distinguishing students who will be the most successful dormitory counselors. Are those selected as dormitory counselors better than those rejected in the selection procedure? Does a selection procedure for dormitory counselors which utilizes individual and group interviews effectively discriminate against the most successful dormitory counselors available in the applicant pool? Counselor success was to have been distinguished through the use of a profile of successful counselors developed using the California Psychological Inventory (CPI).

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This study investigated personality differences among students who seek personal, career, and academic counseling and students who do not seek counseling. Students in the 1983 freshman class (N = 3,245) at Ball State University were administered various tests including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Counseling center files were examined to determine the number of students who subsequently sought counseling (n = 494) and which services they sought. Virtually no previous research existed using these variables. Therefore the study was considered exploratory in nature.In the statistical analyses, descriptive statistics were used to examine counseling groups. Loglinear analysis model fitting was performed on the four MBTI scales for the counseling seeker groups and the nonseekers.Results of the descriptive statistics showed that, in addition to the three counseling service groups, a fourth group emerged. Nearly one-fourth of the seekers did not return for services after intake (the "no services" group). Women represented about two-thirds of the total counseling seekers and of each counseling group. There was a significant relationship between year in school and counseling service sought. In the freshman and sophomore years, students sought more career and academic counseling. By the junior and senior years, students sought more personal counseling.Results of the loglinear analyses showed that the best-fitting model for the counseling groups contained the MBTI scales of sensing-intuiting (S-N) and judging-perceiving (J-P). The model further discriminated between the personal and academic counseling seekers and the nonseeking group. The personal counseling group was intuiting and perceiving (NP) and the academic group was sensing and judging (SJ). No differences were found for the no services and the career groups.The results of this study indicate there are definite personality differences among counseling seekers and nonseekers. By personality type, academic counseling seekers prefer the practical and concrete. Personal counseling seekers prefer the theoretical and abstract. Career counseling seekers and the no services group appear more like the general student population on the MBTI. Suggestions for counseling interventions and future research were given. / Department of Educational Psychology