Making a good career choice: A decision-analytical intervention to enhance proactive decision-making and career choice self-efficacy in high school students

At the end of high school, teenagers must deal with the first life-changing decision of determining what to do after graduation. For these decisions, adolescents need to be able to make good choices. However, most schools have not yet implemented decision trainings into their curricula. A new intervention called “KLUGentscheiden!” was developed to train complex decision-making in high school students to close this gap. The intervention targets three key components of good decision-making: envisioning one's objectives, identifying relevant alternatives, and comparing the identified alternatives by a weighted evaluation. We assumed that successfully training those decision-analytical steps should enhance self-perceived proactive decision-making skills. In addition, the training should also enhance self-assessed career choice self-efficacy. The intervention was evaluated in a pseudorandomized control study including 193 high school students. Compared to a control group, the intervention group significantly increased proactive decision-making skills and career choice self-efficacy. Although different long-term evaluations are still pending, the KLUGentscheiden! intervention provides an important tool to train complex decision-making in high-school students. It also has the potential to apply to other career choices of young individuals, such as choosing majors, a final thesis, a job, or a field of work.     

Differential effects of home and preschool learning environments on early language development

The present study is based on longitudinal data from a German early childhood education and care (ECEC) governmental initiative assessing children's grammatical and vocabulary development between 2;6 and 4;0 years (N = 1,331), quality of the home learning environment and quality of the preschool setting. Results showed that the quality of the home learning environment predicted development in grammatical skills, but not in receptive vocabulary at age 4, while the effects of preschool process quality showed similar relative impacts on both language outcomes. Further analyses revealed effects of accumulated advantages of preschool quality for children from medium‐ and high‐quality home learning environments in their vocabulary development. The results are compared with previous findings from the German ECEC context and discussed with respect to implications for policy efforts to improve ECEC quality and ways in which both learning environments act together on children's development.     

Higher education students’ experiences of a short-term international programme: Exploring cultural competency and professional development

Background: Globalisation trends such as increased migration to and within European countries have led to even greater cultural diversity in European societies. Cultural diversity increases the demand of cultural competency amongst professionals entering their work field. In particular, healthcare professionals need knowledge and skills to equip them to work with clients from different cultural backgrounds. Within higher education (HE), the professional development of cultural competency should ideally feature in undergraduate education and is often promoted as a by-product of a study abroad period. However, recognising that logistical and financial barriers often exist for extended study abroad, one alternative approach could be participation, at home or abroad, in a short-term international programme set within students’ own HE institutions.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore HE students’ experiences of participating in international ‘short-term mobility week’ programmes at three European universities.

Methods: Each university involved in the research offered short-term programmes for healthcare professions students at their own institution, where both local students and students from abroad could participate. Participants were healthcare students in the programme at one of the three universities. Data were collected through focus group interviews (4–8 students per group; n = 25). The data were transcribed and then analysed qualitatively, using a content comparison method.

Results: The analysis identified six categories, which reflected students’ journeys within the short-term international experiences.

Conclusions: The analysis suggested that, for these students, engagement in a short-term mobility week programme provided valuable opportunities for encounters with others, which contributed to personal and professional development, greater confidence in the students’ own professional identities, as well as an increasing sense of cultural awareness.