The influence of group career construction counselling on Tanzanian high school students’ career decision-making difficulties

ABSTRACT This study examined the influence of a group career construction counselling intervention on the career decision-making difficulties of Tanzanian students. Convenience and purposive sampling were used to select 35 high school participants from a single public school in Tanzania. A qualitative approach was employed and an intrinsic single-case, descriptive, intervention career design was implemented. An eight-week career construction counselling intervention was executed. The data were generated using different qualitative data sources. Thematic data analysis was used to analyse the data. The findings revealed that the intervention enhanced most of the participants’ career decision-making capacity, bolstered participants’ psychological selves, improved their career adaptability, and bolstered their ability to make informed career decisions. Future research should focus on longitudinal studies in various contexts with different participants. Career construction counselling interventions for students of different ages and strategies to establish the long-term impact of these interventions should be devised.


Introduction
Transitioning successfully from high school through college/university and entering the job market requires significant and appropriate career decisions on the part of students.However, such transitioning can be daunting due to the myriad options and choices available today.At the same time the postmodern world continues to evolve rapidly, while the accelerated use of information communication technology (ICT) further complicates career choices and options (Maree, 2018a).
According to Kazi and Akhlaq (2017), career decisions have a lasting impact on individuals.When they experience difficulties during career decision making and receive little assistance in addressing these difficulties, the quality of their performance, satisfaction levels in life, and overall well-being can be compromised.A key aim of career counselling is to facilitate the decision-making process, in particular to help individuals overcome the difficulties they encounter when navigating career choice transitions (Amani & Sima, 2015;Maree, 2016).Career counsellors can play a crucial role in this challenging transition stage by assisting high school students in making appropriate career decisions.

Overview of career decision-making difficulties
The term 'career decision-making difficulties' is used to describe the challenges experienced by individuals before, during, and after making career decisions (Anghel & Gati, 2019).Sound career decision making is important, especially for high school students (Paixão & Gamboa, 2017).Choosing a career at this critical stage has a lifelong effect and becomes even more challenging for many individuals who may feel confused and anxious due to the increase in career options in the occupational world (Gati et al., 1996;Vaiopoulou et al., 2019).If these difficulties are not dealt with promptly, inappropriate career decisions may be made that will likely affect students' future well-being, the standard of living, and job satisfaction (Akpochafo, 2020;Gati & Amir, 2010;Gati et al., 2010).
Researchers have identified two main types of career difficulties: career indecision and career indecisiveness (Gati & Saka, 2001;Gati et al., 1996).Career indecision is generally considered a normative developmental stage in career decision making and includes cognitively associated difficulties.Career indecisiveness on the other hand is usually considered a more persistent condition that is associated with emotional and personality-related issues (Gati & Saka, 2001;Levin et al., 2020).Resolving these two types of difficulties calls for different interventions.Career indecision requires psychoeducational and psychosocial information on how to make a career decision, and career indecisiveness requires career counselling.
Based on decision-making theory, Gati et al. (1996) developed a taxonomy of career decision-making difficulties consisting of three major difficulty clusters: lack of readiness, lack of information, and inconsistent information.Lack of readiness refers to difficulties that occur before the decision-making process takes place.The other two clusters comprise difficulties that arise during the decision-making process.Lack of information has four categories of difficulties: lack of knowledge about the steps involved in making a career decision, lack of information about the self, lack of information about various occupations, and lack of information about the ways of accessing additional information.Inconsistent information has three categories of difficulties concerning the use of information: unreliable information (difficulties arising from unreliable or ambiguous information), internal conflicts (difficulties caused by contradicting preferences), and external conflicts (difficulties caused by contradictory interaction with significant others).
Researchers across the world have found an association between different variables and career decision-making difficulties such as gender, maturity, culture, personality, self-efficacy personality and emotional intelligence, and locus of control (Albion, 2000;DiFabio et al., 2013DiFabio et al., , 2015;;Gati & Saka, 2001;Goliath, 2012;Kırdök & Harman, 2018, 2018;Migunde et al., 2015) Our literature review on specific factors that contribute to the career decision-making process (Gati et al., 1996) revealed four trends.First, cultural contexts play a major role in career decision making (Zhou & Santos, 2007).Second, varying and contradicting findings emerged on how male and female students differ in their experience of career decision-making difficulties (Migunde et al., 2015).Third, while extroversion and neuroticism personality factors were found to have a significant relationship with career decisionmaking difficulties in the Italian context (DiFabio et al., 2013), extroversion and self-awareness were negative predictors of career decision-making difficulties in the Turkish context (Kırdök & Harman, 2018).Fourth, access to career counselling was found to significantly increase individuals' level of career adaptability (Maree, 2022).

Career decision making and identity development among adolescents
According to Marcia (1966), making life choices, especially career decisions, leads to the development of commitment, widely regarded as a building block of identity.Marcia (1966) identified four categories of identity formation that individuals experience in their lives based on two key components, namely exploration and commitment.The four categories are discussed briefly below (Marcia, 1966(Marcia, , 1989)).
Diffusion status: Individuals in identity diffusion status lack a sense of identity, are not engaged in the exploration of ideological and interpersonal issues, and do not commit to personal values, beliefs, and goals (low exploration, low commitment).
Foreclosure status: Individuals in foreclosure status have reached a solid level of commitment by adopting their parents' attitudes without consideration or exploration (high commitment, low exploration).
Moratorium status: Individuals in moratorium status have actively engaged in exploring various opportunities but have not yet made any choice or commitment (high exploration, low commitment).
Achievement status: Individuals in achievement status have done exploration and have made a clear commitment to their choices (high commitment, high exploration).

Theoretical framework
The present study was guided by career construction theory (CCT) (Savickas, 2002).

Career construction theory
Career construction counselling (CCC), as a specific example of life design intervention (Maree, 2020;Savickas et al., 2009), is based on a narrative concept of career development and career management (Savickas, 2013).Savickas (2002Savickas ( , 2013Savickas ( , 2019) ) formulated career construction theory (CCT) by combining the psychodynamic, differential, and developmental approaches to create a meta-theoretical framework known as career construction counselling.According to Savickas (2002), CCT is based on a social constructivism/constructivist perspective, which is about how individuals construct their reality.CCT considers how individuals construct their lives and careers, impose direction on their vocational behaviour, and make meaning of their careers to adapt to the changing nature of the work environment in the 21 st century (Maree, 2013;Savickas, 2013).CCT aims at clarifying individuals' understanding of their potential by identifying their key life themes, which in turn enhance their career decision making (Cardoso et al., 2018;Maree, 2019a, b).Three central perspectives on what the self entails constitute the foundations of CCT, namely 'self as an actor, self as an agent, and self as an author' (Savickas, 2013, p. 151).
The central focus of CCT is thus on enhancing people's career adaptability and the elicitation of their life themes (Savickas, 2013).

Career adaptability
Career adaptability refers to 'individuals' resources for coping with current and anticipated developmental tasks, occupational transitions, and work trauma that to some degree alter their social integration" (Savickas & Porfeli, 2012, p. 662).Savickas (2013) states that career adaptability is a set of attitudes, competencies, and behaviours that individuals can use to ensure a good fit with their work.He proposes four dimensions of career adaptability that 'represent general adaptability resources and strategies that individuals use to manage critical tasks, transitions, and traumas as they construct their careers' (p.158).These dimensions are explained by Bimrose and Hearne (2012) as follows: Career concern : Individuals' ability to develop a positive attitude towards the future (showing interest in future careers).
Career control: Individuals' ability to make decisions about future careers and to exercise a degree of control over their lives.
Career curiosity: Individuals' interests and ability to explore the educational and vocational opportunities that are available (active exploration).
Career confidence: Individuals' ability to solve problems by believing that they can achieve what is necessary to realize their goals.Savickas (1995) argues that career decision-making difficulties "experienced by adolescents and young adults may occur partially because they have not recognised their life themes" (p.365).Savickas (2002) regards life stories/themes as the key factor in making meaningful career decisions and achieving career adaptability.Career-related stories articulate individuals' distinctiveness, explain why they make decisions, and clarify the meanings that direct those decisions (Mcllveen & Patton, 2007).The extent to which individuals can narrate or tell their stories indicates the extent to which their actions will add meaning to others (Maree, 2013).The narration of career-life stories, according to Savickas et al. (2009), promotes decision making as it helps individuals transform issues related to career choice into a bigger form of lived meaning that improves their ability to make sound decisions.

Rationale for the study
Students in Tanzania, especially those in public secondary schools and at higher learning institutions, often experience career decision-making difficulties, as do their peers in the rest of the world.Many Tanzanian high school students, especially those in government schools, continue to have little or no exposure to career programmes and career information services.As a result, they complete their secondary education with little knowledge of career choices.The government introduced counselling services in all secondary schools to rectify this shortcoming (Mabula, 2012).The heads of secondary schools were authorized to assign specific teachers to provide career counselling services to students (Mabula, 2012).However, despite this government intervention, career counselling in government secondary schools remains inadequate.The majority of students consequently have to rely on cultural and social influences to make career decisions (Mabula, 2012), which often result in inappropriate career choices.Yet, the authors of this article were unable to find a single study done in Tanzania on factors contributing to this worrying situation.They could also not find any programmes or support aimed at helping students resolve their career choice difficulties.

Goal of the study
This study set out to explore the influence of a group career construction counselling intervention on the career decision-making difficulties of a group of public high school students in Tanzania.The following section reviews the research questions used in the study.

Research questions
Two research questions guided the study: i. Exploratory question How did the intervention through the conduits of narratability, career adaptability, and intentionality influence the participants' career decision-making capacity?
ii. Comparative question What were the main differences between the participants' pre-and post-intervention themes and subthemes?

Participants and context
The target population consisted of Form 5 students from a government high school in the Morogoro municipality in Tanzania.Convenience and purposive sampling were used as the sampling techniques to select one fairly homogeneous group of Form 5 students from a single school.The students were selected because they were at the critical stage of transition either from high school to college or entering the world of work.About 100 students willing to participate were asked to reflect by themselves on whether they had already made their career decisions and to write their responses down on a piece of paper.The primary researcher (the second author of this article) read all the students' responses and selected 35 students who reported having difficulties in making a career choice and who also expressed the need for career guidance and counselling.The mean age of the males was 18 years and 5 months and that of the females 18 years and 9 months.

Mode of inquiry and design
Intervention research (Rothman & Thomas, 1994) based on career construction counselling (employing a qualitative mode of inquiry with a constructivist worldview orientation) was conducted to investigate the research problem.An intrinsic, single-case, descriptive, intervention study research design was used (Creswell & Poth, 2018).

Data generation instruments
The data generation sources included interviews (pre-intervention and post-intervention interviews), observations, and documents (the CIP, the primary researcher's journal/diary, and the participants' journals: Table 1).

Rigour of the study
Strategies used to increase the trustworthiness of the research are discussed below (Table 2).

The Career Interest Profile (CIP, v6) (2017)
The CIP is based largely on career and (to a lesser extent) self-construction theory.The questionnaire consists of four sections designed to help individuals i) identify family influences in their career choices; ii) identify their key life themes; iii) identify their career interests and concerns, and iv) advise themselves on how to turn challenges into hope (Maree, 2017) (see Table 3).Numerous research The pre-intervention interviews were conducted to determine the participants' career decision-making difficulties and their need for career counselling intervention.The post-intervention interviews were conducted to determine the influence of career construction-based counselling on the participants' career decisionmaking difficulties.
Written responses were obtained from individual participants.
The Career Interest Profile (CIP v6) (2017) This questionnaire helps assessees narrate their careerlife stories, reflect on their own stories, and listen to and advise themselves.
The participants wrote their responses down in the questionnaire.

Observation
The participants' experiences, behaviours, actions, and interactions during the intervention were observed to uncover hidden meanings and feelings.
Experiences, actions, behaviours, and interactions were noted.Document review Specific documents such as policy documents and brochures relating to the research were reviewed.

Specific information relevant to the research problem was noted. Journal/Diary
The participants' and the primary researcher's reflections were noted.
Written responses were generated from each participant's reflection.
projects (nationally as well as internationally) have confirmed the rigour (validity, trustworthiness, and credibility) of the CIP and its value in enhancing the elicitation, clarification, and (co-)construction of career-life stories in diverse settings (Maree, 2021(Maree, , 2022)).

Data analysis and interpretation
Thematic analysis (TA) was used to analyse the qualitative we had gathered (Clarke & Braun, 2013a b;Clarke & Braun, 2017).We (the two researchers in the study) agree with the following view expressed by Bernard and Ryan (2010, p. 107): 'No matter how hard we try, there are no purely inductive or deductive studies'.Accordingly, even though we did not purposely implement elements of a deductive approach to data analysis (during Phases 3 and 4 of the data analysis), we drew on Gati et al. (1996) taxonomy of career decision-making difficulties in order to name subthemes accurately.During Phase 1, we familiarized ourselves with the data.In Phase 2, codes were generated.In Phase 3, themes were tentatively identified, and in Phase 4, these themes were reviewed and subthemes identified.In Phase 5, themes and subthemes were defined and named.In Phase 6, a research report was written.

Drawing of conclusions
Generalisations of the findings were avoided as the focus was on understanding the particular participants' experiences of career construction.

Ethical considerations
The research was approved by the relevant university's institutional board.Approval was obtained also from the Regional Administrative Secretary (RAS) of the Morogoro region in Tanzania, who later introduced the primary researcher to the District Secondary Education Officer, who in turn issued permission to conduct the study in the selected high school.The management of the school gave permission to conduct the research.Informed consent (or assent, where applicable) was obtained from the participants and their parents, and the research was carried out in line with applicable ethical principles and guidelines.The participants narrated and listened to their stories, reflected on their life experiences, and wrote their reflections down in their journals.
Week 7: Discussion and follow-up The participants verified and commented on the interpretation of the information, drew on the information obtained during the preceding activities, and discussed newly identified career goals.

Outcomes/findings
The researchers used six data sources to collect the qualitative data.These sources are indicated with the letters (A-F) to enable readers to identify specific sources.A: Pre-intervention interview.B: The different CIP activities were divided into sections with detailed information and participant responses relevant to the research question.Each CIP quotation had a number for the section description.For example, career-life story, section 4 is indicated by B4.
The participants' responses are shown by the number allocated to the participants, for example 1-35.The page and line numbers are also indicated.The data references thus have four digits, for example A;5;1;8-9, where A stands for the data source (in this case, the pre-intervention interview), five stands for the participant number, one stands for the page number of the specific source, and 8-9 stands for the line numbers on that page (see Table 5).
An overview of the main themes and subthemes that emerged from the data is provided in the following section.Identified themes and subthemes are discussed below.
Four main themes and a number of subthemes emerged from the data analysis (see Table 6).The effect of the intervention on the participants' career decision-making difficulties Self-knowledge/awareness Self-regulation Career decision making enhanced Self-efficacy Self-confidence Bolstered career identity New perspectives and plans Resilience Responses to substantiate identified themes and subthemes are provided below.(The responses of the participants are verbatim with only very light editing in order to preserve the authenticity of the responses.)i. Theme 1: Career choice-related difficulties: brief description Career choice-related difficulties include impediments or hindrances to choosing a career and may inhibit an individual from making an appropriate career choice (Saka et al., 2008) A;10;3;1-307: 'I don't have the confidence to decide because I'm not sure.In our school, there are some teachers who are supposed to help students with career decisions, but they never do.' e. Job scarcity A;6;2;1-307: 'I had a dream of being a doctor (specialist), but due to lack of employment opportunity I found myself falling into economic sector which is not my choice.'f.Subject choices (combinations) and grades A;22;8;1-307: 'Initially I wanted to be an accountant, but sadly I was selected to study history, geography and language (HGL), which I'm not sure if it can lead me to the career I want.' ii.Theme 2: Career development programmes available to help the participants manage career decision difficulties Career development programmes are career support programmes that aim to provide students with early career knowledge to assist them in determining career goals (Lapan et al., 2003) In the next section the findings of this study are related to the literature on the topic.

Discussion
The goal of the study was to explore the influence of a career construction counselling intervention on the career decision-making difficulties of a group of public high school students in Tanzania.The following section reviews the research questions in the light of the study's findings.

Exploratory research question
How did the intervention through the conduits of narratability, career adaptability, and intentionality influence the participants' career decision-making capacity?
The intervention helped the participants explore their personal career-life stories, thus helping them establish coherent career plans, make choices, manage diverse transitions in life, and design meaningful work-lives.The intervention promoted what McAdams (2013, p. 273) calls 'three developmental layers of psychological self, namely the person as an actor, the person as agent, and the person as author'.The intervention thus to varying degrees enabled the participants to transition from performing as (1) social actors, (2) demonstrating motivated agency to (3) integrating their career-life stories as autobiographical authors (McAdams, 2015).autobiographicity, which enabled them to clarify their career identities.This finding concurs with the argument of Cardoso et al. (2022) and Savickas (2012) that individuals' identities are shaped positively by the career-life stories they recount that give meaning and purpose to their life trajectories.The intervention in this study fostered narrative identity that enabled the participants to construct a more coherent sense of self.This in turn reinforced their sense of security, which is essential in dealing with career challenges (Cardoso et al., 2022).Maree (2018b) maintains that an established sense of career identity is vital as it joins individuals' career-live stories together and assists them in negotiating challenging and repeated work-life transitions.

Comparative research question
What were the main differences between the participants' pre-and post-intervention themes and subthemes?
As the participants engaged in the career construction counselling sessions, they demonstrated positive career development changes.Before the intervention, most of them lacked confidence (self-efficacy) to make a career choice as they did not believe in their capability to achieve their goals.However, in most cases, the participants' self-efficacy increased after the intervention.The majority of the participants were able to reflect on their distinctive qualities, skills, abilities, and strengths, which increased their belief in their capability to achieve their career goals and fulfil their purpose in life.This finding supports the findings of Cardoso et al. (2022), Maree and Che (2018), DiFabio and Maree (2012), and Ruiters and Maree (2022) who also found life design counselling helpful in increasing learners' self-efficacy and sense of self.Most of the participants in the present study displayed increased levels of self-understanding, growth, and the capacity to make sound career decisions after the intervention.Maree and DiFabio (2018) and Taber (2019) also stress the importance of helping individuals gain insight into their decision-making challenges and empowering them to take decisive control of their careers.Forward movement and progress were achieved as the participants started to make meaning of their lives and develop a sense of purpose for their future careers.The findings on the participants' forward movement and the progress they displayed during the intervention support Maree's (2022) view that dealing with individuals' need to experience a sense of purpose and meaning in their career-lives is a requirement for establishing the link between their life purpose objectives and their related career preference.This study's findings also support previous researchers' findings on the usefulness of career construction counselling in decreasing individuals' career decision-making challenges (Babarović & Šverko, 2016;Maree, 2016Maree, , 2021)).

Limitations of the study
First, the participants were selected purposively (non-randomly), which restricts the generalizability of the study.A randomized, controlled study with larger and more diverse groups could have allowed for the generalization of the findings in different contexts.Second, despite taking every possible step to increase the trustworthiness of the research, potential researcher subjectivity bias may have further limited the transferability of the research findings.Third, due to time limits and financial constraints, the primary researcher was unable to conduct more followup interviews to assess the long-term effects of the intervention.Fourth, the researchers' personal preference for the approach followed in the intervention may have influenced the intervention style.Fifth, other researchers may have different interpretations of the findings.

Implications of the research for future research, policy, and practice
The training of career counsellors in the approach explained and executed in this study should be prioritized to ensure that career counselling in Tanzania (and elsewhere) stays abreast of the most recent developments and responds appropriately to fundamental changes in the workplace.Researchers, career counsellors, and practitioners wishing to implement career construction counselling interventions should receive the necessary training before implementing such interventions, particularly with individuals from disadvantaged environments.When implementing a group-based intervention, researchers or counsellors should also make provision for one-to-one (individualized) sessions where individuals are given the opportunity to express their feelings and ask questions freely (many individuals feel uncomfortable and shy in group settings).Other researchers wishing to research the topic of this study should consider replicating it in different contexts with different participants to assess the usefulness and effectiveness of the intervention in Tanzania and elsewhere.Future researchers should also consider doing longitudinal studies to assess the long-term impact of the intervention.Lastly, future studies should consider assessing career decision-making difficulties using quantitative and qualitative instruments that can measure individuals' objective and subjective features.

Conclusion
For various reasons, sound career decision making is important for high school students (Paixão & Gamboa, 2017).Given the circumstances prevailing in secondary schools in developing country contexts (such as Tanzania), high school students in these contexts especially are at risk of making unrealistic choices if they do not have access to career counselling intervention programmes.Therefore, a need exists to examine possible strategies to deal with the career decision-making difficulties of high school students in these contexts.To varying degrees, our intervention saw the participants transition from performing as (1) social actors, (2) demonstrating motivated agency to (3) integrating their career-life stories as autobiographical authors (McAdams (2013).The participants' career decision-making capacity was influenced positively and their improved decision-making ability could be seen in their enhanced self-understanding (self-identity), career identity discovery, and increased adaptability resources.We conclude that the kind of intervention conducted in this study can enhance the capacity of participants in similar contexts to deal with their career decision-making difficulties by reflecting critically on their life stories and drawing successfully on them.This should help them manage their career decision-making difficulties and transition successfully from high school through college/university and enter the job market requires.We hope that our research will make a contribution in this regard.
sessionA post-intervention interview was conducted and follow-up activities were discussed.2160Long-term and short-term follow-up.

Table 1 .
Summary of the data-gathering methods/techniques.

Table 2 .
Strategies to increase the trustworthiness of the research.ofresearchactivitiesandthe research process was kept for review later by peer researchers to see if they arrived at the same conclusions.Methodological description A detailed methodological description was given to help determine the integrity of the research results.Confirmability TriangulationDifferent methods of data generation were used to avoid the primary researchers' possible own bias.Researcher's own biasThe primary researcher's beliefs and assumptions underpinning the decisions made and methods used are acknowledged in the research report.The services of an external coder (an experienced educational psychologist) were acquired to validate the findings of the thematic data analysis and to enhance the interrater (intercoder) validity of the study (O'connor & Joffe, 2020).

Table 3 .
Summary of the CIP.

Table 4 (
below) gives details of the study's intervention procedures.

Table 5 .
The four-digit coding system used to reference data (transcripts).

Table 6 .
Summary of themes and subthemes.
I don't know how I will choose the right career which will suit me.I face difficulty to decide because my mind tells me that "no" you will not manage the career you are trying to choose.' d.Lack of confidence

Theme 3: The participants' most positive and negative experiences of the intervention
I wish my school could initiate programmes that deal with career choice like frequent dialogues and debates, counselling sessions and talent classes to find out what we may do with our training in the future.'iii.This theme sheds light on the unique way in which the participants experienced the intervention.
B4;15;3;1-213:'I did not enjoy some questions because they caused me to remember the painful situation I experienced.'F;31;2;1-224: 'I must admit that it was difficult for me to tell my personal story in a group.I was a bit shy to express myself.'

iv. Theme 4: Effect of the intervention on the participants' career decision-making difficulties
This theme clarifies the effect of the intervention on the participants and covers the participants' feedback on the benefits of the intervention.a. Career exploration C;30;2;1-147: 'I have learned a lot of things like career selection.I now know that I have to explore different career options that suit me according to my interests and my personality.'