The
Mexican American population is one of the largest ethnic minority groups
in the United States and approximately 34% are under the age of 18
(Ramirez & De la Cruz, 2003). Despite the population size, Mexican
Americans only account for approximately 7% of total college enrollment
(National Center for Education Statistics, 1998). If the current
conditions of education for Mexican American students remain, only 11 of
100 Mexican American kindergartners will obtain a college degree
(Education Trust, 2003).
The undereducation of Mexican Americans has serious implications for the
group's socioeconomic advancement as well as U. S. economic
competitiveness. It is widely acknowledged that education is an
important means to economic progress, especially given the increasing
value of education and technological skills in the labor market
(Lockwood & Secada, 1999). If current trends persist, there is a
potential for the deterioration of an educated labor force, resulting in
a decline of U.S. economic competitiveness, a loss in sales and profits,
as well as a decline in the nation's tax base (Council of Economic
Advisers, 2000). Clearly, this is a group that needs new and creative
approaches in education in order to confront this crisis.
In the U.S. economy, education and occupational attainment are
interrelated. Research on educational and occupational aspirations of
Mexican Americans has received the most attention (Arbona, 1990).
Studies with junior high and high school students have consistently
found that Mexican Americans have high occupational and educational
aspirations (Dillard & Perrin, 1980). However, Mexican Americans
students express low expectations of achieving their aspirations due to
external barriers (McWhirter, 1997). Scholars suggest that these low
expectations may come from the lack of knowledge about higher education
and occupational training requirements (Tornatzky, Cutler, & Lee, 2002;
Venezia, Kirst, & Antonio, 2003). For example, a study conducted by
Venezia et al. (2003) found that students and their parents do not know
enough about or understand higher education and its requirements.
Clearly, Mexican American adolescents are in much need of career
counseling and guidance.
School counselors are trained to provide career counseling and guidance
to students. However, they are often placed in positions where their
role is primarily administrative, leaving little time to help individual
students (Paisley & McMahon, 2001). In a survey of school counselors,
Barker and Satcher (2000) found that counselors tended to overlook the
need to implement career development programs. They also noted that
work-bound students received minimal counselor attention.
For many school counselors, career counseling, if provided at all, is
limited to course scheduling and advising. Some schools with adequate
financial resources may offer computerized career guidance programs to
their students (e.g.,
COIN JR. Career Guidance System,
DISCOVER for middle school). These programs often include
information on educational, leisure, and occupational opportunities.
Some computer programs include a career interest assessment component
and modules designed to help the user become a better decision maker and
problem solver.
Although the use of computer guidance programs can be very helpful,
students get the most benefit from these programs when feedback and
support are received by a counselor (Pelling, 2002). Furthermore, a
culturally responsive school counselor facilitates career exploration
and choice among diverse students (Lee, 2001). Individualized guidance
and mentoring is particularly needed for Mexican American adolescents
who are frequently from families who lack experience with the higher
education preparation process (e.g., preparing for college admissions
tests, financial aid availability, college track courses to take in high
school). While individual attention to Mexican American students is
ideal, this can be a problem in rural school districts where there may
only be one school counselor for several schools and career resources
are limited. Given that the presence of a counselor can facilitate the
career guidance of Mexican American students and the time constraints of
many school counselors, this article describes an innovative approach in
which master's and doctoral counselor trainees in a career counseling
course utilized the internet as a means of providing career assessment,
guidance, and mentorship to Mexican American adolescents located in a
rural school district.
Online Career Counseling Program
In 2002, a
Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs
(GEAR-UP) grant was awarded to Texas A & M University by the U.S.
Department of Education. The grant provided funding to work with three
rural school districts near the Gulf Coast region of Texas. The primary
goal of the GEAR-UP program was to facilitate the college enrollment of
low-income students. Students participating in the Gulf Coast GEAR-UP
project were predominately Mexican American. Various intervention
programs were developed in order to prepare
students to enter and succeed in postsecondary education. One
program that was developed was the Online Career Counseling program.
As part of a course requirement,
graduate counselor trainees enrolled in a career counseling course
provided online career counseling to middle school students
participating in the
Gulf Coast GEAR UP project. Counselor trainees in the course
consisted of school counseling and counseling psychology students.
Experience and knowledge of computer and internet communications varied
among the counseling students. Therefore, counselor trainees were taught
the practices of online counseling, internet tools (e.g., discussion
boards), and helpful communication techniques (e.g., smileys; Murphy &
Mitchell, 1998).
Training also involved the use and familiarity of the technology
that was used during the online counseling sessions. Because
confidentiality of the students' electronic communications was
important, career counseling was conducted using the
WebCT program. WebCT is a software program with various
communication devices such as email and discussion boards. Each middle
school student was given a personal login account and password. The
school counselor and course instructor were the only individuals with
access to the students' accounts.
Middle school students logged into WebCT under the supervision of their
school counselor. Because the communication was asynchronous, school
counselors and students were able to log into WebCT at their
convenience. Once a student was logged into WebCT, a discussion board
with the student's name and a link to a career activities web page was
visible.
.
Each student was given their own personal discussion board. Students
were unable to view other students' personal discussion board. Only the
student's assigned counselor trainee and the course instructor were able
to view the student's discussion board. A student manual with
instructions on how to maneuver in WebCT was sent to the school
counselor in order to assist students.
In addition to using WebCT to communicate with the middle school
students, counselor trainees used the
Career Zone. The Career Zone is a free online career guidance
program for middle and high school students program developed by New
York State Department of Labor. Career Zone has numerous career
activities to help with exploring skills, interests, and careers related
to an individual’s skills. A unique aspect of this program is that
school counselors can keep track of a student's career development by
utilizing the online portfolio feature.
Counselor trainees created Career Zone login accounts for
each of their middle school student clients. Students' Career Zone
accounts were only accessible by the trainees, school counselor, and
course instructor. The course instructor provided counselor trainees an
outline of the career activities that were to be conducted with their
middle school students. The first discussion board posting that middle
school students found was a welcome and introduction of the counselor
trainee. Included in the posting was an explanation about
confidentiality.
Counselor trainees were also given specific Career Zone activities to
work on with their middle school student clients. Because the
communication with middle school students was done on discussion boards,
the course instructor was able to provide individual supervision by
reading each counselor trainee's postings.
The following section provides a case example of how online career
counseling was conducted with a female Mexican American middle school
student. A pseudonym of the student is used in the case example. The
counselor trainee for this case was the second author.
Case Example
Maria was one of 30 Mexican American middle school students who received
career counseling as part of the Gulf Coast GEAR UP project. She lives
in a rural town with her parents and four younger siblings. Although
both of her parents graduated from high school, neither received any
postsecondary education. Her father is an unskilled laborer for a
construction company and her mother occasionally works with a cleaning
service. Maria stated that none of her relatives had attended college or
received any education beyond high school. In fact, she reported that
she wanted to be the first in her family to attend college. When asked
about her goals for the future, she reported that she wants to “do well
in life so my mom can see one of her children make a good life.”
Although school was not always easy for Maria, she reported that she
gets mostly A’s and B’s, and that she gets along well with her teachers.
When asked about her friends, she said that she has several whom she
“hangs out” with but doesn’t feel that many of her friends are able to
understand her. Maria described several creative activities that she
enjoys such as singing and writing poetry. She also expressed that she
enjoys being around people and feels good when she is able to help
someone.
The purpose of the initial message to Maria was to begin to create an
atmosphere in which she felt comfortable and engaged in the counseling
process. As seen in the example below, the counselor trainee began her
message by introducing herself as Maria’s career counselor. One goal was
to establish rapport by demonstrating warmth and excitement in the
message by using a strategic choice of phrases such as “very excited”
and “can’t wait to here from you” as well as explanation points. The
counselor trainee also utilized self-disclosure to build rapport with
Maria. Although confidentiality was explained to Maria by her school
counselor before she logged onto WebCT, the counselor trainee added her
own explanation of confidentiality.
|
Introductory Posting
|
|
Hi Maria!
My name is
Kim and I will be your career counselor for the next several weeks.
I am very excited about working with you. In fact, I have been
looking forward to getting to know you since I found out that I was
going to get to do this!!
For now, I
really want to know about what kinds of things you like to do –
things like what your hobbies are, how you spend you time and so
on. I also want to know some of the things that you think are
important for me to know about you.
Let me show
you what I mean… I really like the water – things like windsurfing,
jet skiing, and sailing (I am pretty jealous of people who live near
the water!). I also like to shop. I especially like to find
bargains. Since I do a lot of reading in school, I don’t get a
chance to read for fun too often, but I really like those books that
keep me guessing. What else? – If there is one thing I think you
should know about me it is that I like to get to know people – which
makes this a lot of fun for me.
Well, now it
is your turn. I can’t wait to hear from you. Remember, what I
really want to know about is you, so just tell me what you think I
should know!!
Talk to ‘ya
soon – Kim
PS. One last
thing I need to tell you. I plan on keeping our conversations
private. That is what we counselors call “confidential.” That means
whatever you share with me will stay between you and me. However,
since you are a minor (sometimes that is a bummer!), I may have to
share some things with your school counselor or your parents. But
don’t worry we will talk about that IF it happens. Also, Texas law
requires me to tell your school counselor or parents if I think
there is any child abuse, risk of harm to yourself or others, or
elder abuse. If this happens, I will definitely talk to you about it
and we can both make a plan on how to deal with it.
|
After the initial message, the primary objective was to
continue to maintain rapport with Maria and to gather relevant
information about her career development. In each of the postings, the
counselor trainee reflected on Maria’s previous message, praised her for
her good work and participation, and encouraged her to continue to work
toward career counseling goals. The counselor trainee also incorporated
her personal thoughts and experiences in order to cultivate a personal
connection with Maria. Instead of giving Maria a list of questions to
answer, the counselor trainee integrated questions throughout the
message with the aim of creating a virtual conversation with Maria. The
following is an example of a message sent during the rapport building
portion of the counseling process.
|
Rapport
Building Posting
|
|
Hey Maria!!
Sounds like
music is something you really enjoy. I think writing songs is really
neat! I always wished I could write songs or at least sing, but as
hard as I tried I could never do either very well. As it turned
out, I took up the violin and loved it. So, what kinds of songs do
you write? Have you gotten to take any music classes or participate
in band or orchestra?
Your mom must
been have a pretty big influence on you. I’d like to know more
about her and about your relationship with her. I’d also like to
know more about your dad and your relationship with him. What is
life like at home? I bet having 4 other kids in the house makes
things pretty interesting. Are you the oldest? Like I said last
time, I really want to learn more about you, so I am gonna keep
asking a lot of questions.
Well, I am looking forward to hearing more about you in your next
note!
- Kim
|
After four weeks of rapport building and informal information gathering,
the counselor trainee introduced the Career Zone activities. The
approach and format of the first part of this message was very similar
to previous messages. However, at the end of the message, the counselor
trainee provided Maria with instructions on how to
login into the Career Zone.
|
Career Zone Posting
|
|
Guess what?
I have some good news for you. The career activities are ready to
go! They will really help us work on your career plans. What I need
you to do first is to complete the My Abilities exercise. To do
this….
1.
Click on the Career Zone icon on the WebCT page. A sign-in
page will come up.
2.
Under “Existing Users” enter “maria” for the username and
“1234” for the password.
3.
Click the “login” box.
4.
On the next page, you will see a list of activities. Click
on “My Abilities.”
5.
From there all you have to do is answer the questions – make
sure you click the box at the bottom of each page that says “next
step.” Keep going until it tells you that you are done.
Well, I am
gonna let you get to the activity. Hopefully, you will learn a
little about yourself while you do it – I thought it was kind of fun
to do! I am so excited to see how the activity goes for you and to
start working on the career stuff. I also want to keep learning
about you and your life so keep me posted on what is going on with
you - especially how your mom is doing and how you are handling
things.
– Kim
|
The goal for this message was to help Maria feel excited about
completing the activities and to make the process as easy as possible
for her. Although Maria was not able to complete all the Career Zone
activities, she was very cooperative as the counselor trainee gathered
much of the information needed to assist in Maria in her career
counseling aspirations.
Several weeks before the scheduled conclusion of the project for the
semester, the counselor trainee discussed with Maria the ending of the
sessions. Throughout the last several messages, the counselor trainee
emphasized how much Maria had accomplished, how much the enjoyed
learning about her, and how excited she was that Maria had learned more
about her career interests. During the last few sessions, the trainee
also worked with Maria to identify ways to continue to work on her
career development and to identify other sources of support,
information, and encouragement. One suggestion the trainee made was for
Maria to print out a copy of her "career
plan," located on the Career Zone webpage, and
share it with her school counselor. Career Zone has a feature where
all career activities can be summarized, saved, and printed out as a PDF
file.
As in any counseling relationship, feelings associated with ending the
sessions were discussed. By the end of their time together, Maria had
demonstrated a better understanding of her strengths and weakness as
well as of her career aspirations.
Conclusion
Although the internet provides an exciting opportunity for collaboration
between school counselors and university counseling programs, using the
internet for career counseling requires careful attention. Ethical
issues such as informed consent and limitations to confidentiality were
discussed and attended to prior to the beginning of any counseling
services. For example, school counselors were required to gather
parental consent before talking to students about the online career
counseling program. The course instructor also invested a great amount
of time making sure that WebCT was set up in a manner that maintained
confidentiality and privacy of the electronic communications. There was
also constant communication via email and phone calls between the school
counselors and the course instructor in order to address any problems
that occurred with the middle school students.
Once precautions were taken, using the internet as a tool in career
counseling was beneficial to the middle school students who participated
in the program. Many of the students indicated that they felt more
knowledgeable about what type of education or training (e.g., bachelor's
degree vs. associate degree) they needed in order to reach their career
objectives. Furthermore, benefits from the online career counseling
program were not limited to the students. School counselors noted that
there was an increase in parental interests when the students began high
school course planning. For example, one school counselor noted that
twice as many parents attended the high school course planning meeting
than in previous years. Furthermore, school counselors observed that
parents asked more questions about college preparatory classes. It is
clear that the benefits of the online career counseling program reached
beyond the students.
The internet provides a useful and creative way in which school
counselors and university counseling programs can work collaboratively.
Collaboration can help reach adolescents who may not otherwise receive
these services. Although this article focused on Mexican American
students, an online career counseling program can be beneficial to all
adolescents in need of career guidance. However, given the current
educational attainment outlook for Mexican Americans, the career
development of Mexican American adolescents is crucial. Innovative
methods such as the one presented in this article are needed in order to
assist in the career development of Mexican American students.
References
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Authors' Biography
Linda Castillo,
Ph.D. is
an Assistant Professor in the Counseling Psychology and School
Counseling programs at Texas A&M University. She is the Gulf Coast GEAR
UP Principal Investigator/
Project Director and
clinical supervisor of the Online Career Counseling and Online Support
Group for Girls programs. Her areas of research interest and expertise
involve Mexican American educational persistence, acculturation, and
multicultural training.
Correspondence regarding this article can be directed to Dr. Linda
Castillo at
lcastillo@tamu.edu.
Kimberly Pruitt
Kempner, M.A.
is a doctoral
student in the Counseling Psychology program at Texas A&M University.
She is currently completing her internship at the University of
Tennessee Student Counseling Services Center. She served as a counselor
for the Online Career Counseling program with the Gulf Coast GEAR UP
project for 2 years. Her areas of research interest and expertise
include neuropsychology in counseling, ethics in graduate education, and
online counseling.
