The first outcome of the project is an analytical paper, that will present findings and recommendations for the following points:
- What is the real usage and spread of different trans-national quality standards and referentials for individual counsellors (European Career Guidance Certificates, NICE etc.) and for institutional providers of career guidances (e.g Quality Label “Bilan de compétences”) What is the real impact of these standards for the professionalization of career guidance provision?
- How are different quality assurance approaches (focused on policy, organization, process, people, outputs/outcomes, consumption) used in selected european and non-european countries?
- What are the factors in the development and implementation of different quality assurance approaches in career guidance that determine the impact on different target groups?
- How are different guidelines for career guidance strategies and policies (ELGPN, european guidelines) implemented in different countries? What are the main challenges and how are they dealt with in different countries?
- What best practices can be found that illustrate the main approaches in quality assurance in career guidance?
- Content analysis of quality standards: What are the main quality areas in quality standards for career guidance counsellors and for organizational providers of career guidance?
- Analysis of the relative weight of different components of quality standards: Which content elements/quality areas are key for the implementation of quality assurance in career guidance? Which ones are the most “difficult” to observe for individual counsellors and organizations?
- What mechanisms are used to foster the implementation of quality assurance in career guidance for individual counsellors (e.g. mentoring)?
- What mechanisms are used to foster the implementation of quality assurance in career guidance for organizations providing career guidance (quality development tools, self-evaluation, pre-audit procedures)?
- What specific policy recommendations can be inferred from these findings?
An extensive preliminary research done during the preparation of the project showed that although many quality standards, guidelines, resource kits and other documents treating the quality assurance in career guidance exist, very little evidence has been collected on trans-national level and analyzed about their real impact.
The findings and recommendations from the analytical paper will serve as a resource for the development of other intellectual outputs of the project, that have important transfer potential. iCeGS is leading the development of this output. Currently, a data collection template is being prepared and we will start collecting relevant information from January 2018. The working methodology will be as follows:
- Overview by country – specific examples will be selected from partner countries and from countries outside of the consortium. Relevant information will be submitted through the online template.
- Surveys and focus groups – a more in-depth examination will be done for selected practices.
- Preparation of synthesis and case studies – selected examples of good (and bad) practice will be part of the synthesis paper, that will contain specific recommendations and conclusions in regards to other project outputs.
The template will be published on this website in the coming weeks. Feel free to contact us if you wish to contribute to our research efforts.