Lifelong Learn. 2015, 5, 113-139
Choice of Further Education and Career Counselling at Primary Schools as Viewed by Pupils
Aim of this empirical study is to provide a complex view of pupils on the issue of choice of further education and career counselling at primary schools in Zlín District. Attention is mainly paid to the provided services in the field of career counselling, factors influencing the choice of further education, people from which the pupils most often accept advice and help, sources of information which are used most often to support choice of profession and choice of further education, time when the career counsellors start working with pupils and their parents, level of support in the educational area Man and the World of Work in the area of shaping ideas about the further education and further profession, attitude of pupils to the level of influence of school on the parents and their ideas how should the career counselling at primary schools look like. In the survey there were quantitative and qualitative data combined in the sense of methodologically mixed design of sequential nature. Data collection was realized in three steps through context analysis of the text (N = 71), printed non-standardized questionnaire (N = 192) and semi-structured focus group (N = 6). Both quantitative and qualitative analysis implied that pupils in the course of decision making process attribute about the same level of significance to the family and to pedagogical workers. Quantitative analysis among others implied that teachers, along with the parents, are the crucial elements of advice and help provision and also that the career education and predominantly provision of individual counselling to the pupil and the parents is not on the sufficient level. Qualitative analysis showed the attitude of pupils to the question whether school can or cannot influence parents’ visions of further education of their children and the ideas of pupils about the form of career counselling at primary schools.
