The Vocational Clarity Table of Elements

Just imagine what it would be like if 100 percent of college students completed their programs and found their way into careers doing work they love.

A lofty goal, no doubt.

Obviously that would be a remarkable improvement over today’s 50 percent completion rate. For the preconditions of this (what should be alarming) dropout from college, we are confronted by the fact that 80 percent of college students change their majors multiple times.

Not knowing why they are in college or where they are going is not really the fault of the students themselves. A majority of them are fresh out of high school and just now crossing the developmental threshold from childhood to adulthood. For thirteen years (K-12 grades) they were pushed from behind by taller powers who directed them to the next assignment, the next assessment, the next grade.

With a high school diploma in hand, they now stand on college campuses disoriented, waiting for somebody to tell them what to do and where to go now.

A bewildering array of programs urges some pretty major decisions right from the start: A two- or four-year degree? An academic path to a higher credential, or a workforce path to a job? Maybe a certificate or occupation skills award instead of a degree? Make your choice. Pick a major. Get to class! It’s no wonder that persistence and completion rates are so low in colleges and universities across the country.

Now throw in the fact that your average human brain doesn’t come fully online with its capacity for grasping the big picture and long view on life until the mid twenties, and suddenly those stubborn confusion and dropout rates start to make sense.

Does college come too early, then, or should colleges take a different approach in the support they offer to students? At the moment, due to the high risk of failure for students, colleges are directing more money and effort into interventions designed to keep students on the path to completion. They’ve been at it for decades now, for exactly as long as students have been confused and dropping out of college.

Coincidence?

If the principal goal and concern of college is to get students to graduation, then the cost of interventions can be justified and more intervention initiatives will be devised and funded – until the institution itself goes bankrupt.

But what if vocational clarity were the priority – not instead of program completion and graduation, but as first and highest among a college’s institutional commitments? Vocational clarity can be defined as “a clear understanding of one’s calling (Latin vocare), purpose, and direction in life” – big picture and long view stuff. It’s about much more than picking from a catalog of degrees, majors, and courses and then showing up to class.

The major obstacle confronting a commitment to vocational clarity in higher education is the very paradigm of intervention currently in place. Its focus on risk and the use of preventative support to lower the probability of failure also carries an implicit assumption that students are deficient in what they need to succeed.

From the K-12 “push from behind” to post-secondary “stop the bleed” measures, education has become something that is done to students rather than with them.

And you’d better believe that students can feel the difference.

A priority on vocational clarity requires a paradigm shift in education from intervention to empowerment. Its focus is on student potential, not deficiency. Instead of lowering the risk of failure by stepping in with what students are presumed to be missing, empowerment is designed to awaken and ignite what they already have inside themselves. Let’s be bold and name it the human spirit.

The graphic above offers a framework for understanding vocational clarity as comprised of certain essential “elements” arranged according to a catalytic process that begins with the discovery of natural talents or gifts, and culminates in the mastery of skills that enable students to do – perform, achieve, create, and produce meaningful results. My “table of elements” consists in a vertical set that correlates to the student’s inner potential, and a horizontal set that channels this potential outward to the adult world of life and work.

As a method of empowerment, the vocational clarity process begins not with the job market but instead with an assessment of a student’s natural talents, intelligence, and interests. The concept of “interest” is based in the research and career development theory of John L. Holland (1919-2008) who understood it as strategically positioned between an individual’s natural gifts (talent) and the specialized performance tasks of work (skill).

Importantly different from the fleeting focus of attention (squirrel!), interest refers to stable and enduring traits of the personality.

Inwardly, interest is also correlated to individual intelligence – not how smart someone is, but how they are smart (c.f., Ken Robinson). For example, creative talent underlies aesthetic intelligence and can be assessed as “artistic” interest (one of Holland’s six types). It should go without saying that someone with a strong aesthetic intelligence, but who may not measure up to an academic standard of what admission boards consider (logico-mathematically) intelligent, is just smart in a different way.

Holland’s interest codes and assessment tool provide for more than a useful method of matching students to relevant occupations and career paths (interest » activity » skill). It also gives insight into a student’s inner potential – into their unique endowment of the human spirit (interest » intelligence » talent).

By indicating their interest on a scale of values (more or less) in various tasks described in the assessment – not whether they currently have the skills to perform each task or would like to do it professionally someday – the student’s preference for different types of activity is gradually clarified and measured. (This distinction between a specific example and its general type is critically important to keep in mind while completing the interest assessment to ensure the accuracy of its results.)

John Holland realized that the countless job tasks across the more than 1,000 distinct occupations in the world of work can be distributed under just six types of activity, with each occupation centering 2-3 of these types of activity in the day-to-day responsibilities of work.

These six types of activity correlate directly, according to his theory, to six “workplace personalities”: realistic DOERS, investigative THINKERS, artistic CREATORS, social HELPERS, enterprising PERSUADERS, and conventional ORGANIZERS.

Once students have the “depth reading” of their inner potential, they can proceed with focused research into the more relevant occupations matching their interests, learn about the credentials that may be needed in preparation, where to find those credentials, and how to get started in the best direction.

Now they’re not just going to college but going through college, eventually into careers doing work they will love. And because they have an inspiring big picture and long view ahead of them, the college program of courses become stepping stones on the path bringing them closer to the life they really want.

These students are much more likely to keep their major and complete their program – because they have a clear understanding of where it leads. When colleges offer strategic support in the form of interest assessments, vocational guidance, and career counseling, failure and dropout rates are dramatically reduced.

It’s not rocket science.