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Career-related parent support in a high school in Shanghai: a needs analysis

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Content Running head: CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 1
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN A HIGH SCHOOL IN SHANGHAI:
A NEEDS ANALYSIS
by
Joyce Yuan Gong
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
Aug ust 2019
Copyright 2019 Joyce Yuan Gong
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Tables 5
List of Figures 7
Abstract 8
Chapter One: Introduction 9
Background of the Problem 10
Importance of the Problem 12
Organization and Stakeholder Group 15
Organizational Context and Mission 15
Organizational Performance Status/Need 15
Organizational Performance Goal 16
Description of Stakeholder Groups 16
Stakeholder’ Performance Goals 17
Stakeholder Group for the Study 19
Purpose of the Project and Questions 19
Methodological Framework 20
Definitions 20
Organization of the Study 22
Chapter Two: Review of the Literature 23
Career Guidance and Career Development Theories 23
Self-Concept Theory of Career Development 24
Gottfredson’s Theory of Circumscription and Compromise 26
Social Cognitive Career Theory 27
Career Guidance Practice in Global Context 29
Career Guidance in Educational Settings 30
The Importance of Providing Career Guidance in High School 31
Self-Concept and Skills Development in High School 32
21st Century Life and Career Skills 33
The Role of Parents 36
Parents’ Guidance 36
Family-School Partnership 38
Parent’ Guide for 21st Century Citizenship 38
Career-Related Parent Support Scale (CRPSS) 39
Career Guidance in China 40
Why Career Guidance is Needed in China 41
Why Chinese Parents’ Role is Important 42
Current Policy Changes 44
Career Guidance in High School in Shanghai 46
Parents’ Knowledge, Motivation and Organizational Influences 47
Knowledge and Skills 48
Motivation 52
Organizational Influences 57
Conclusion 60
Chapter Three: Methods 61
Participating Stakeholders 61
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 3

Survey Recruitment Strategy and Rationale 62
Survey Sampling Criterion and Rationale 63
Interview Recruitment Strategy and Rationale 63
Interview Sampling Criterion and Rationale 64
Data Collection and Instrumentation 64
Surveys 65
Interviews 66
Data Analysis 67
Credibility and Trustworthiness 68
Validity and Reliability 70
Ethics 70
Limitations and Delimitations 72
Chapter Four: Results and findings 75
Knowledge Factors 77
Parents’ Knowledge about the Concept of Career Guidance 77
Parents’ Knowledge about Guiding Process 80
Parents’ Knowledge about How to Reflect 82
Pearson Correlation Analysis of Knowledge Influence 84
Summary 87
Motivation Construct 88
Parents’ Value for Career Guidance 88
Parents’ Attributions for Career Guidance Success 89
Parents’ Self-Efficacy for Career Support 90
Pearson Correlation Analysis of Motivation Influence 91
Summary 92
Organizational Influence Category 93
A Culture of Collaboration between the School and Parents 95
The School’s Efforts to Promote the Importance of the Parents’ Role 96
Co-develop Workshops and Programs 96
The School Offers Workshop at Right Time 97
Pearson Correlation Analysis of Organizational Influence 97
Summary 99
Summary of Data Analysis 99
Chapter Five: Solutions, Implementation and Evaluation 102
Policy Solutions 102
Solution One: Providing Training Workshops to Parents about Career-related Support 108
Solution Two: Establish Online and Offline Career-related Parent Support Platform 109
Solution Three: Enhance Family School Partnership 110
Implementation Plans 110
Solution One 113
Solution Two 114
Solution Three 116
Evaluation of Policies 117
Level 1 Reaction 120
Level 2 Learning 121
Level 3 Behavior 122
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 4

Level 4 Impact 123
Implications for Future Research 124
Conclusion 125
References 127
Appendix A Survey Items 142
Appendix B Interview Protocol 146
Appendix C Knowledge Worksheet Joyce Yuan Gong 147
Appendix D Informed Consent/Information Sheet 157

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 5

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Organizational Mission, Global Goal and Stakeholder Performance Goals 17
Table 2: Assumed Knowledge Influences 52
Table 3: Assumed Motivation Influences 57
Table 4: Assumed Organizational Influences 60
Table 5: Validated Assumed Knowledge Causes 77
Table 6: Survey Analysis about Conceptual Knowledge 78
Table 7: Time to Start Career Guidance 81
Table 8: Survey Analysis on Metacognitive Knowledge 83
Table 9: Descriptive Abbreviation – Knowledge Influence 84
Table 10: Pearson Correlation Matrix for Knowledge Influence (N=96) 85
Table 11: Validated Assumed Motivation Causes 88
Table 12: Survey Analysis on Value Motivation 89
Table 13: Survey Analysis on Attribution Motivation 90
Table 14: Survey Analysis on Self-efficacy Motivation 91
Table 15: Descriptive Abbreviation – Motivation Construct 91
Table 16: Pearson Correlation Matrix for Motivation Influence (N=96) 92
Table 17: Validated Assumed Organizational Influence Causes 93
Table 18: Survey Analysis on Cultural Model and Culture Settings 94
Table 19: Descriptive Abbreviation – Motivation Construct 98
Table 20: Pearson Correlation Matrix for Motivation Influence (N=96) 98
Table 21: Validated Causes Summary 100
Table 22: Validated Causes & Proposed Solutions 103
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 6

Table 23: Summary of Solution Categories 106
Table 24: Implementation Plan Summary Table 111
Table 25: Evaluation of Proposed Solutions 118

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 7

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Grade information of the respondents. 76
Figure 2: Gender information of the respondents. 76
Figure 3: Parents' view on the most important skills children need to develop. 79
Figure 4: Parents' view on importance level - life & career skills for 21st century workplace. 79

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 8

ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to conduct a needs analysis for high school Chinese
parents with Shanghai United International School Gubei Campus (SUIS Gubei) in the areas of
their knowledge, motivation, and organizational influence to reach the school’s goal to develop
students for the 21st century global workplace. Mixed-methods approach was used to conduct
this study. This study concludes that there are strong and urgent needs for parents in SUIS Gubei
to provide career-related parent guidance for their children. Parents need to know how to guide
their children for the 21st century global workplace and how to reflect on their own effectiveness
in providing guidance. Parents need to feel that their role, in addition to that of the school, is
critical in career guidance and ultimately, students’ success in making a relevant and appropriate
career decision by themselves. Parents need to believe they are capable of effectively guiding
their children in the discussions of career-related topics. From the school perspective, the school
needs to improve collaborative partnerships with the parents and work together with the parents
to codevelop workshops and programs in developing students’ 21st century skills. To address
these identified needs, an integrated program with three solutions is suggested for SUIS Gubei
from providing training workshops to parents about career guidance to establishing online and
offline career related parental support platforms and enhancing the family school partnership.
The three solutions are integrated, with the first one as the training program, the second as the
learning platform to encourage practicing and continuous improvement, and the last one as the
culture of support to ensure positive reinforcement at all stages of implementation. With careful
planning and execution, this program could be further generalized to apply to all the private high
schools in Shanghai.

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 9

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Career development is a lifelong journey, starting from childhood, becoming much
clearer during adolescence and turning pragmatic and realistic in adulthood (Porfeli, Lee, Hynes,
& Hirsch, 2012). Career guidance is defined as the activities to assist individuals to make
educational and career choices (OECD & EC, 2004). Globalization, advances in technology, the
rapid changes in genetics, artificial intelligence, digital technology, robotics, nanotechnology,
three-dimensional printing, biotechnology, smart systems and electrical grids represent the
arrival of a Fourth Industrial Revolution, which has been transforming society and the work
(World Economic Forum, 2016). With the rise of information overload and social anxiety, to
thrive in a world where change is constant and learning never stops calls for a new consideration
of career development and career guidance by shifting focus from job matching and searching to
skills development to be both agile and creative (Gillmore, 2018).
Career choice is influenced by multiple factors including personality, interests, self-
concept, cultural identity, globalization, socialization, role model, social and family support and
available resources such as information and financial (Kerka, 2000). Bandura, Barbaranelli,
Caprara, and Pastorelli (2001) pointed out that individual’s career trajectory is influenced by
several factors including the context in which they live in, their personal aptitudes, social
contacts and educational attainment and most importantly, their perceived efficacy is the key
determinant of their preferred choice of work and life. However, among all factors influencing
career choices of young adults, the influence of parents, the most pivotal one, is often neglected.
Numerous studies started to focus on the influences of parents on children’s life and
career choices, and a strong theme from research is that parents play critical roles in the process
of adolescent career development, potentially lending cognitive, affective and behavioral support
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 10

(Bryant, Zvonkovic, & Reynolds, 2006). However there remains little research on how parents
across a spectrum of cultural context can provide systematic and effective career guidance to
help the teenagers develop self-concept and prepare their young adults with career skills for the
future.
Background of the Problem
Career development theories and career guidance practices have been applied in
education settings and been validated in many countries and under different culture settings for a
long time. Gysbers (2008) stated that there were increasing similarities in career guidance
provisions, although differences in conceptualizations across countries remained. At the last
decade of the 20th century and in the first decade of the 21st century, the efforts on developing a
robust career guidance program in educational settings have been strengthened. Providing career
guidance in education settings shared a common purpose of life career development, which is
defined as self-development over the life span through the integration of the roles, settings and
events in a person’s life (Gysbers, 2008).
Education in China is viewed as a major path to advancement and the critical way of
changing life. Many families raise children with such values (Shek, 2007). Unlike western
belief that level of ability leads to success, Chinese parents have high expectation on their
children’s academic success due to China’s outcome-based education system. Chinese parents
have typically paid attention to the issue of career development when their children reach
university or before graduation from the university. Under deeply rooted tradition of filial piety
based on Confucian philosophy, students tend to be more obedient and follow parents’
directions, including the education and career choices (Leung, Hou, Gati, & Li, 2011).
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 11

In 2010, a program to provide career guidance in high school was initiated by the
Ministry of Education of China followed by the announcement of the Outline of the National
Mid- and Long-Term Plan for Educational Reform and Development 2010–2020 (Huang &
Wang, 2014). Extensive efforts have since been made by some pioneer high schools on a variety
of projects mainly from teachers and students’ perspectives, such as training courses to change
teacher’s mindset, coaching services to develop their capabilities and occupation exposure
curriculum to students. However, the role of parents and the connections between students and
parents, parents and teachers, have been generally ignored by these new policies, even though
parents exert important influences on Chinese students’ career choices (Zhou, Li, & Gao, 2016).
The problem of practice addressed by this dissertation is the absence or low quality of
career-related parent support in high schools in China. Shanghai is one of the pioneer cities
practicing education reforms in China and has generated some best practices and outstanding
performance such as the superb scores of Shanghai students across all domains in the 2009 and
2012 PISA results (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development 2013). A two-
decade effort in Shanghai has been underway to research and implement career guidance
programs in high school. One of the leaders of this kind of efforts, Dr. Huo, has observed that
“there is no systematic career guidance support in public high schools” and the initial efforts in
private high schools have been of “low quality” (Y.P. HUO, personal communication, November
17, 2017). Dr. Huo mentioned some best practices in developing teacher’s career guidance
capabilities and enriching the students’ curriculum experience. However, parents’ career-related
support is neglected. Therefore, there remains a need for further research on how to support
parents in providing career-related guidance to high school students in Shanghai, China.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 12

Importance of the Problem
There are several social problems that could potentially be mediated by more parent input
in the career planning of high school students in China, such as adolescents’ emotional or
behavioral issues, NEET (not in education, employment, or training) which refers to the group of
children who are living with parents and not doing anything productive in society, and the group
of young adults who become unemployed after graduation.
All of these problems have attracted great attention from both the government and the
entire society in mainland China. In 2010, the Chinese government issued the National Outline
for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development (2010-2020), which suggested
establishing a high school students’ guidance system and emphasized the guidance of high
school students to finally improve high school students’ development (Ministry of Education of
the People’s Republic of China, 2010).
The problem of inadequate career guidance in Chinese high school is significant given
the increasing changing 21st century global workplace. Without appropriate guidance, students
may have difficulties in life exploration and career decision-making. In this respect, parents play
a potentially critical and supportive role (Bryant et al., 2006). However, parental involvement
generally declines from elementary school to high school, and parents pay more attention to the
academic results during the high school years (Rozek, Svoboda, Harackiewicz, Hulleman, &
Hyde, 2017). Fan & Leong (2016) discussed the problem facing career guidance in China today
is the challenge of overcoming career development beliefs and attitudes. The whole education
system in China has been outcome-based, with less emphasis on children’s holistic development.
Career guidance in school setting is followed by the education reforms in China. Historically,
the learning in school is for earning a position or privilege. Most college applicants prefer to
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 13

choose a university by its ranking and reputation (Fan & Leong, 2016). And high school
students believe the top school can naturally bring them to the best or prestigious jobs.
In Confucian philosophy, filial piety is a virtue of respect for one’s parents and ancestors.
In an Asian country such as China, with a deeply rooted tradition of filial piety, perceived
parental expectations strongly influence students’ career decision-making (Leung et al., 2011).
Chinese parents request children to be self-discipline, obedience, respect for authority. They are
the role models of their children. A parent’s serious conversation on career topics can either
inspire teenagers to explore a diverse set of potential occupations or stick to a path they think
their parents will approve of. The activities parents choose for their children, the school parents
select for their children and the attitude parents treat their own jobs, all influences adolescent’
career selection. And as a result, all these will affect students’ future job satisfaction and life
quality.
Chinese parents traditionally have placed high expectations on their children and in high
school, most students are requested to focus on mathematics and science, and those with other
talents such as art and music, are often criticized. The talents of art and music are less valued by
Chinese parents, majorly due to the high pressure of gaokao. Chinese parents have a strong
influence on their children’s career decisions and they usually push their children to pursue
decent and well-paid professions such as lawyer, doctor, engineer, professor and other such
occupations (Yi, 2014).
Previous studies found that both Chinese parents and teachers think career guidance and
counseling were not necessary before attending university. Prior to 1993, all the university
students were assigned a job upon graduation. In China’s education history, starting from 1996,
all the university students started to have the freedom to choose jobs, but they were offered little
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 14

helps and guidance. Over the past decade, China has gone through a series of significant
transformations, as a result of globalization and rapid economic development. Along with this,
China has experienced profound reforms in its economic structure, labor market and education
and technology sectors. The current job market of China, especially first tier cities such as
Shanghai, is more of international competition and many new jobs started to emerge after the
wide spreading of the internet and e-commerce. Facing the digital and globalized world, the
current parents with little career development and career guidance experience limited by China’s
social and economic context at their ages, generally does not have career guidance concept nor to
mention provide career-related parent support to their children (Zhou et al., 2016).
Family and school are among the two most important environments that are associated
closely with adolescents’ development (Lohman, Kaura, & Newman, 2007; Santana, Feliciano,
& Jimenez, 2016). Students in high school are at a critical developmental stage, becoming
mature both physically and mentally, forming much clearer life values and worldviews,
beginning to seriously explore the world and consider their future, and facing the challenges of
education choice and career planning (Harter, 2006). Career guidance refers to skills required to
investigate the world of work in relation to the knowledge of self and to make informed career
decisions, all of these need appropriate guidance from the family and school, and most
importantly, strong support from parents.
Career is a choice of pursuit and people makes decisions based on their principles and
values. It should be individualized and person-centered. Career guidance from the school would
be applied to a general group of students. Only parents could provide individualized guidance to
help students choose opportunities, test interest, prepare and develop skills. Especially in China
under single child policy, the student is the only hope of the family. In this circumstance, career
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 15

guidance from parents become crucial to the whole family. With right career guidance, the
students’ motivation will be strengthened and their performance in the education will become
better.
Organization and Stakeholder Group
Organizational Context and Mission
Shanghai United International School Gubei Campus (SUIS Gubei) is a privately-owned
international school with 900 students from grade 6 to grade 12 (G9-G12). It is under the Xiehe
Education Organization, one of the biggest private education organizations in China. SUIS
Gubei started operating 10 years ago and has seven cohorts of graduates. The mission of the
school is to prepare all students to become confident global citizens with international mindset
(Shanghai United International School, Gubei, 2018). As part of the goal, the school and the
parents need to work together to give effective guidance to students to make them prepared for
21st century global workplace.
Shanghai launched career guidance initiatives in high schools in 2010, sponsored by the
Ministry of Education. This kind of efforts has just started in SUIS Gubei since 2016 but is more
focused on providing guidance on university selection. There is no well-rounded career
guidance program in place in the school. Parents in SUIS Gubei are highly engaged with a
variety of school activities. If the school could cooperate with parents to put together a robust
career guidance program including career-related parents support to help students develop
necessary 21st century life and career skills, the school is able to achieve its mission to prepare
students to become confident global citizens with international mindset.
Organizational Performance Status/Need
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 16

In order to fulfill its mission and provide students enough support in career guidance, it is
imperative that SUIS Gubei have collaborative partnership with parents, help them understand
the 21st century global workplace, build their awareness of the importance of the career-related
parent support and co-design programs to develop students’ 21st century life and career skills.
Parents need to know they have an important role in communicating with and supporting the
development of adolescent children. What they communicate should be consistent with the
school support programs to make sure that students will not receive conflicting messages.
Failure to do so can result in the lack of confidence and unreadiness of students to address future
job market challenges. Thus, the organization needs to work with the parent support group more
closely in devising career intervention programs. Currently, no such a program exists for parents.
The gap is 100%.
Organizational Performance Goal
The school’s goal is to help parents understand 21st century global workplace so that
both the parents and the school can give guidance to students to make them prepared. By the
2022 school year, Chinese parents will provide career-related parent support to their children in
high school (G9-G12) to get them prepared for 21st century global workplace. The ability to
navigate the complex life and work environments in global competitive information age requires
students to pay significant attention to develop adequate life and career skills (Partnership for
21st Century Skills, n.d.b.). The necessary life and career skills include flexibility and
adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural skills, productivity and
accountability, leadership and responsibility.
Description of Stakeholder Groups
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 17

The parents, the school administrator, teachers and students are all important stakeholders
in helping the school fulfill its mission and goals. PSG, the parents support group, have regular
communication between the school and parents on all related study and life issues. The school
has a guidance office at present with a team of five but what they have provided to students are
academic support in IB course selection, with little part on career choice guidance, and for grade
11 (G11) and grade 12 (G12) major part of the support are on university application guidance.
Career-related contents are mentioned but not systematically discussed. PSG is a well-
established voluntary parent organization; however, the purpose of the organization was to build
communication with the school on topics relating to academic, food, safety and other
administrative issues. Parents at G11 and G12 are more anxious to obtain consultations about
how to select the best university for their children. Parent involvement in career guidance is
minimal.
Stakeholder’ Performance Goals
Table 1
Organizational Mission, Global Goal and Stakeholder Performance Goals
Organizational Mission

SUIS Gubei is dedicated to preparing students to become confident global citizens with
international mindset.
Organizational Goal

The school needs to prepare students being ready for 21st century global workplace.

Stakeholder Group 1

Chinese Parents in SUIS
Gubei

Stakeholder Group 2

School Administrators

Stakeholder Group 3

Teachers

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 18

Stakeholder Group 1 Goals

By the 2022 school year,
Chinese parents will provide
career-related parent support to
their children in high school to
get them prepared for 21st
century global workplace.

Stakeholder Group 2 Goals

By the 2022 school year, the
school is able to provide
parents career-related parent
support training workshops to
get them prepared for providing
career guidance.

Stakeholder Group 3 Goals

By the 2022 school year,
teachers are able to
communicate with parents
group on a regular basis in
terms of the improvement areas
for career guidance to students.

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 19

Stakeholder Group for the Study
While the joint efforts of all stakeholders contribute to the achievement of the overall
organizational goal of preparing students to become confident global citizens with an
international mindset, it is important for the school to provide help to parents in terms of
providing career guidance to students. Therefore, the study was focused on parents of high
school students (from G9 to G12), and with an aim to understand their knowledge and
competence gap, their value and self-efficacy and organization culture that supports the
realization of the goal. Since it is new, the gap is 100%.
Purpose of the Project and Questions
The purpose of this project was to conduct a needs’ analysis for high school Chinese
parents with SUIS Gubei in the areas of their knowledge and skill, motivation, and
organizational resources necessary to reach the organizational performance goal. The analysis
began by generating a list of possible needs, based on existing literature, and then moved to
examining these systematically to identify the actual needs of the Chinese parents at SUIS
Gubei. While a complete needs’ analysis were on all parents, for practical purposes the
stakeholder focused on in this analysis are Chinese parents of students from grade 9 to grade 12.
As such, three questions guide this study:
1. What are the parents’ knowledge and motivation related to career guidance to achieve
career-related support for their children?
2. What is the interaction between the school’s organization culture and context and the
parents’ knowledge and motivation?
3. What are the recommended improvements to equip parents more in the areas of
knowledge, motivation, and organizational solutions for parents?
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 20

Methodological Framework
Clark and Estes’ (2008) gap analysis, “a systematic, analytical method that helps to
clarify organizational goals and identify the gap between the actual performance level and the
preferred performance level within an organization,” was adopted for needs’ analysis as the
conceptual framework. The methodological framework is a qualitative case study with
descriptive statistics. Assumed knowledge, motivation and organizational needs were generated
based on personal knowledge and related literature. These needs were validated by using surveys
and interviews, literature review and content analysis. Research-based solutions were
recommended and evaluated in a comprehensive manner.
Definitions
Career guidance: The term guidance is generally translated in French as “orientation”
and also called career counselling in different cultural context. It is the provision of services and
activities to individuals of any age and at any point throughout their lives to help them make
educational, training and occupational choices (OECD & EU, 2004). In this dissertation, Parents’
career guidance is equivalent to career-related support.
Career-related parent support: It refers to parental involvement in students’ self-
exploration to form self-concept and future skills development. In this dissertation, career-
related parent support is equivalent to parents’ career guidance.
Life design: Three cornerstones of career theory and intervention: individual differences
or traits, career development or tasks, and life-career design or themes.
Super’s five life and career development stages: Donald Super’s career model is based on
the belief that self-concept changes over time and develops as a result of experience. Super
developed the theories and work of colleague Eli Ginzberg. Super felt that Ginzberg’s work had
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 21

weakness, which he wanted to address. Super extended Ginzberg’s work on life and career
development stages from three to five, and included different sub-stages (Super, 1980, 1990).
Career Construction Theory: Savickas (2005) provides the notion that careers do not
simply unfold but rather, they are constructed by individuals by imposing meaning on their
vocational behavior and occupational experiences. It is founded on three key components:
vocational personality, career adaptability, and life themes.
Career counseling theory: Donald Super created a useful framework for conceptualizing
the constantly evolving nature of career development. It is also important to note that the terms
career counseling, career development, and vocational guidance have distinct meanings that are
time and culture specific. Vocational guidance was the original term used in the U.S. and was
generally used throughout the world at the beginning of the development of a guidance
movement. The terms career counseling and career development came into more common usage
in the 1950s through the work of Super (1955) and were institutionalized when the name of the
National Vocational Guidance Association (1913-1983) was changed to the National Career
Development Association in 1984.
Gottfredson’s theory of circumscription and compromise: Gottfredson (1981, 1996)
assumed that career choice is a process requiring a high level of cognitive proficiency. A child’s
ability to synthesize and organize complex occupational information is a function of
chronological age progression as well as general intelligence. Cognitive growth and development
is instrumental to the development of a cognitive map of occupation and conceptions of self that
are used to evaluate the appropriateness of various occupational alternatives.
P21 framework definition: To help practitioners integrate skills into the teaching of core
academic subjects, the Partnership has developed a unified, collective vision for learning known
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 22

as the Framework for 21st century learning. This Framework describes the skills, knowledge
and expertise students must master to succeed in work and life; it is a blend of content
knowledge, specific skills, expertise and literacies (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, n.d.b.).
21st century life and career skills: The necessary life and career skills for 21st century
global workplace include flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and
cross-cultural skills, productivity and accountability, leadership and responsibility.
Organization of the Study
Five chapters are used to organize this study. This chapter provided the reader with the
key concepts and terminology commonly found in a discussion about career-related parent
support in high school for the readiness for 21st century global workplace. The organization’s
mission, goals and stakeholders as well as the initial concepts of gap analysis adapted to this
needs analysis were introduced. Chapter Two provides a review of current literature surrounding
the scope of the study. Topics of career guidance theories, career-related parent support history,
China’s culture and policy development in this area and family-school partnership will be
addressed. Chapter Three details the assumed needs for this study as well as methodology when
it comes to choose of participants, data collection and analysis. In Chapter Four, the data and
results are assessed and analyzed. Chapter Five provides solutions, based on data and literature,
for addressing the needs and closing the performance gap as well as recommendations for an
implementation and evaluation plan for the solutions.

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 23

CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
This chapter presents a review of the literature pertaining to the importance of parents’
support in providing career guidance and developing students’ necessary skills during
adolescence to navigate complex careers in the future. The review begins by addressing career
guidance, career development theories and career guidance in educational settings. The second
section introduces the future job market challenges and required life and career skills for 21st
century. The third section discusses the importance of career guidance in high school and
reviews the career guidance history in China, especially Shanghai, the city where most of the
pilot education programs in China are implemented. The fourth section channels the focus on
parents’ role in the above context. The final section discusses the specific knowledge,
motivation and organizational support that parents need to be equipped in order for them to
provide the necessary career guidance for their high school students.
Career Guidance and Career Development Theories
Career development theory and practice have shifted from quantitively oriented, trait-
and-factor approaches, and job matching model to the qualitatively oriented, constructivist and
social constructive approach, and developing model (Arulmani, Bakshi, Leong, & Watts, 2014).
Career guidance and counselling started in the early 20th century as a result of the growth of
industrialization (Keller & Viteles, 1937; Watts, 1996) and evolved in the 21st century with
theoretical models and empirical tested approaches. Career theories have evolved along with the
changing work contexts, shifting from individual to systems, from content to process, and to the
mix of content and process (Arulmani et al., 2014; Patton & McMahon, 2014). Prior theories and
practices served career development needs in the 20th century and were mostly Western-based.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 24

However, in the dynamic world of work of the 21st century, they are not sufficient in addressing
the challenges of globalization and technology disruptions.
Over the 100 years of history, there are five major theories of career development that
guided career guidance and counselling practice along with research in the United States as well
as internationally (Leung, 2008). They are (a) theory of work-adjustment, (b) Holland’s theory
of vocational personalities in work environment, (c) the self-concept theory of career
development formulated by Super and more recently by Savickas, (d) Gottfredson’s theory of
circumscription and compromise, and (e) social cognitive career theory.
The theory of work-adjustment and Holland’s theory of vocational personalities in work
environment is job-related with a focus on matching and environment fit. The theory by Super
(1980, 1990), a life-span, life-space approach to career development, among the many theories,
receiving much attention in the world, suggests a developing model. The self-concept theory has
received wider attention and has been tested in different cultural settings in the world.
Gottfredson’s theory is a more recent contribution, representing theory of both content and
process (Leung, 2008; Patton & McMahon, 2014). Among the big five theories, the three based
on developing model and constructive approach are widely used in career guidance.
Self-Concept Theory of Career Development
Donald Super’s life-span, life-space approach has been tested, refined and advanced over
the years since 1950. According to Super (1990), self-concept is a product of complex
interactions among a number of factors, such as physical and mental growth, personal
experiences, environmental characteristic and stimulations. The career model, also known as
Life-Career Rainbow, is based on the belief that self-concept changes over times and develops a
result of experience. Super et al. (1992) developed the theories based on the extension of Eli
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 25

Ginzberg’s work on life and career development stages from three to five. The stages include
growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance and decline.
However, Super neglected the fact that people may not develop each of their career
stages one after one. Savickas (2002) developed a new way of approaching and understanding
career, with concentration on processes of development first, and then on the content. He initially
worked under Donald Super and there is a very clear legacy from Super in Savickas’ work. The
concept of career maturity was widely used to describe the degree of a person’s development.
Savickas used the term life designing to describe the process of individuals constructing their
careers (Savickas, 2005). Savickas takes a developmental approach to career and particularly
focuses on the self-concept, how we see ourselves, as a fundamental aspect of career.
In terms of life design, researchers such as Savickas and his collaborators (Nota &
Rossier, 2015; Savickas, 2012; Savickas et al., 2009) conceptually clarify these constructs from a
historical perspective. They identify three keystones of career theory and intervention: individual
differences or traits, career development or tasks, and life-career design or themes. The central
goal of career counseling shifts from choosing an occupation or charting a career path to
championing a meaningful work life that matters to the person and to society (Fan & Leong,
2016).
Super, Osborne, Walsh, Brown and Niles, (1992) identified fives areas to be considered
when assessing career development. They are career planning, career exploration, decision-
making, world of work information, and knowledge of preferred occupational group. It increases
with the age and grade-level increase during the adolescent years. Savickas (1997) proposed
career adaptability as a replacement of the career maturity concept since adaptation servers as a
bridge constructs to integrate the four segments of Super’s life‐span, life‐space theory: individual
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 26

differences, development, self, and context. Adaptability could be conceptualized using
developmental dimensions. Recent research has advanced career adaptability along three primary
dimensions of planning, exploring and deciding (Creed, Fallon, & Hood, 2009; Hirschi, 2009;
Johnston, 2018; Koen, Klehe, & Van Vianen, 2012). Maree (2017) mentioned that recognizing
the constraints and the limitations by use of a biologically-based term, career maturity was
replaced by the concept of career adaptability due to the mixed results obtained in empirical
research. The practical implications of career adaptability as it relates to career guidance. The
gap can be found by use of assessments such as the Career-Adapt-Abilities Scale, the Career
Adaptability Inventory, the Students’ Career Construction Inventory and the Career Future
Inventory, and then a targeted career intervention can be applied (Johnston, 2018).
Gottfredson’s Theory of Circumscription and Compromise
In the development of career theories, cognitive growth and development are popularly
discussed. Gottfredson’s (1981, 1996) theory, assumed that career choice is a process requiring a
high level of cognitive proficiency. In recent revisions of the theory, Gottfredson’s (2002, 2005)
elaborated on the dynamic interplay between genetic makeup and the environment. Genetic
characteristics play a crucial role in shaping the basic characteristics of a person, such as
interests, skills, and values. Yet their expression is moderated by the environment that one is
exposed to.
Even though genetic makeup and environment play a crucial role in shaping the person,
Gottfredson (2002, 2005) maintained that the person is still an active agent who could influence
their own environment. Hence, career development is viewed as a self-creation process in which
individuals looked for avenues or niches to express their genetic proclivities within the
boundaries of their own cultural environment (Leung, 2008). Gottfredson (2005) developed four
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 27

stages of circumscription, with the fourth stage called orientation to the internal, unique self,
which is at ages 14 and above. By age 13 and 14, adolescents have developed two cognitive
competencies related to career development: self-concept and perceptions about occupations
(Gottfredson, 2005). It is the adolescent time of individual, in which the self-concept such as
personality, interests, skills and values, become prominent. Compromise is the response to
external realities and accommodate personal preference to achievable choice in the real world.
Although Gottfredson’s theory remains untestable in many aspects, it serves well as a conceptual
guide to career guidance program development, especially in a school setting (Leung, 2008).
Social Cognitive Career Theory
The Social Cognitive Career Theory framework has been widely used to guide career
development practice. Bandura et al. (2001) outlined that the course of life is shaped by many
choices made during formative period of development of an individual. This theory is based on
Bandura’s self-efficacy theory. Self-efficacy relates to a person’s perception of their ability to
reach a goal (Bandura, 1986). It plays the central role in the cognitive regulation of motivation.
Perceived self-efficacy is proved as a pivotal career choice and development (Bandura et al.,
2001). The theory offers interrelated three segmental process models, centering around three core
variables: self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and personal goals (Leung, 2008). The three
segmental processes are the development of academic and vocation interest, how individuals
make educational and career choices, and educational career performance and stability. Social
Cognitive Theory stressed the importance of self-efficacy in one’s choice and behavior. Career
self-efficacy is influenced by individual variants and contextual factors such as family
background and learning experiences (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 2000).
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Young adults can develop interest in activities when they feel efficacious with predictable
positive outcomes associated with the activities. With the reinforcement between self-efficacy
and outcome expectation, the interest would lead to a personal goal. The intertwining
relationship helps formation of a stable pattern. Bandura et al. (2001) claimed that familial
socio-economic status influences parental perceived efficacy and academic aspirations, which, in
turn, affect their children's perceived efficacy, academic aspirations and career achievement. The
children's perceived efficacy and academic orientations shape their perceived efficacy for
different types of career pursuits, which, in turn, plays a determinative role in the careers they
choose and those they actively shun.
Strategic career intervention will positively impact young people in the context of Social
Cognitive Career Theory. It provides a well-rounded framework for young people to understand
the development of career interest, career choice, and performance (Leung, 2008). This has been
studied and verified in many cultural settings internationally. For example, by using this
framework, Nota, Ferrari, Solberg, and Soresi (2007) did a research studying the career
development of Italian youths when they attended a university preparation program. The study
generated many findings consistent with the Social Cognitive Career Theory career choice
models, most importantly, the authors indicated the lynchpin of family support to career decision
and efficacy.
The above-mentioned theories offer conceptual foundation for career guidance and career
development. The matching theories fail to provide insights on how to guide for individuals’
development. The developing models of self-concept over life-span and social cognitive model
are more appropriate in support of effective career guidance in the 21st century workplace. The
changing global social contexts call for an important skill set development – lifelong learning
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 29

(Herr, 2008). The emerging social re-arrangement of work has been reflected in career theories
by the conceptual move from career development to career management. The construct of stages
as developmental periods has been replaced by learning cycles, which pushed people to actively
plan and lifelong learn to construct their best possible future (Savickas, 2008).
Current economic changes resulted in corporate downsizing, layoffs and restructuring; in
this regard, the decision-making quality and career adaptability becomes much more important.
To remain relevant and useful in the 21st century, scholars are re-inventing theories based on
historically findings and application feedbacks; and career guidance professionals are
continuously updating techniques to concentrate on self-construction within an information
global society (Savickas, 2008).
Career Guidance Practice in Global Context
In different countries and at different settings, career guidance has different formats in its
delivery, influenced by the social, economic and political situation and cultural heritage.
However, there are increasing similarities in career guidance provision. Watts and Sultana (2004)
conducted three coordinated reviews of national career guidance policies carried out by the
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Commission
and the World Bank. They found career guidance services in middle-income countries was less
well-developed than in high-income countries. But the dynamics of globalization, together with
policy borrowing, have led to a great deal of convergence (Watts & Sultana, 2004). In early
2001, the OECD reviewed career guidance policies in 14 OECD countries and reported a variety
of methods, from class talks, career fairs, workshops, to test interpretation and personal
interviews, but with the similarities to support student planning (Gysbers, 2008).
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At the beginning of the 21st century, scholars were pushed to collaborate and co-develop
innovative and practical models and methods to help people better manage their working lives.
Practitioners in career guidance were trying to apply the models and methods in other countries
under different settings and modify them for general application facing the new social
arrangement of work and the globalization of career counseling (Savickas et al., 2009). For
example, the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale was developed by an international research group and
has been validated in many countries, such as Turkey, Italy, Switzerland, China and the
Philippines, using different populations include young adults in education settings. These
validation studies show that the conceptual structure of career adaptability replicates well in
different context (Johnston, 2018).
Career Guidance in Educational Settings
In the global era, the increasingly intensive international economic competition and
accelerating flow of information across national boundaries have brought about significant
changes in education, the labor market and the professional lives of individuals (Van Esbroek,
2008). The career paths of individuals are becoming more and more complex and fragmented
and people switch to jobs that do not exist today or new jobs they create by themselves. The job
growth in the next decade is expected to outstrip growth during the previous decade, creating
11.5 million jobs by 2026, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2016). Even further,
it’s estimated that at least 65% of children at primary school today will ultimately hold jobs that
do not yet exist (Economic Graph Group, 2017). Therefore, the job matching theories could not
work in the 21st century global workplace. Developing theories have laid a solid foundation for
career guidance practices in education settings.
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Guest (2000) argued that all the issues about career have been viewed as an integral
element of the educational process for a long time. Reimers (2006) saw a growing consensus
among educations to try to use education to make sure students become architects of their own
lives. He further concurred that the children could be productive citizen and fulfill the great
promise of the enlightenment given the right skills to be part of a fast-changing, interconnected,
digital economy. Gysbers (2008) thinks career guidance should use logical and systematic ways
of instruction to help students. The knowledge students need to acquire, the skills they need to
develop, along with the attitudes they need to form, are the results of the career guidance
program in educational settings. Thus, reflecting a general presupposition of many countries that
career guidance is served to achieve learning outcomes.
The Importance of Providing Career Guidance in High School
Super (1990) described that in the stage of exploration (ages around 15 to 24), an
adolescent has to cope with the vocational developmental tasks of crystallization, specification
and implementation. Crystallization refers to a cognitive process involving an understanding of
one’s interests, skills, and values, and to pursue career goals consistent with that understanding.
Specification is making tentative and specific career choices, and implementation is taking steps
to actualize career choices through engaging in training and job positions. During this stage,
people have the characteristics of trying out through classes, work experience and hobbies to
develop choice and skills (Super, 1992). Students are on their own in college. There is a clear
gap when students shift from teacher directed learning in high school to student directed learning
in college.
Under this globalization and digitalization circumstance, career guidance in high school
become more crucial and urgent. The self-concept and future skills development is the key
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content in career guidance in high school. Many scholars studied on the topics about how to
prepare students for the college life. However, there is little research from family perspective to
help student be their own CEO, develop capabilities such as setting goals, devising right learning
strategies, making sound decisions and monitoring their performance by themselves.
Self-Concept and Skills Development in High School
Career guidance is not just choosing an occupation, it is a process of self-exploration and
self-evaluation (Nota & Rossier, 2015; Savickas, 2011; Savickas et al., 2009). A relatively
stable self-concept should emerge in late adolescence to serve as a guide to career choice and
adjustment. The self-concept will continue to develop and change when the individual gains
more exposure and reflection through the developmental stages (Savickas, 2008).
In the high school years, self-concept development is important while there is more
emphasis to developing decision-making skills, goal-setting and planning skills (Gysbers, 2008).
In high school, the topic of college and career readiness have been discussed for years in the
United States. In 2010, the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE), the
National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium
(NASDCTEC), and the Partnership for 21st century Skills (P21) came together to emphasize that
integrating career and technical education (CTE) and 21st century skills into the entire education
system will put more students on the path to success (Hyslop, 2011).
As career development is a life-long process, adolescents start working on their careers
long before they engage in actual work behaviors. Negru-Subtirica and Pop (2016) did a
research on the relationship of career adaptability and academic achievement of 1151
adolescents. Results showed a reciprocal relationship, that adolescents with a strong future
orientation, who were already invested in career planning activities tended to perform better in
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school and vice-versa, high academic achievement further strengthened adolescents' positive
outlooks on their vocational future.
Gysbers (2008) emphasized that especially in high school years, the career guidance
purpose is to develop and use decision-making, goal-setting and planning skills, to prepare for
the future. It is possible to improve adolescents’ decision-making skills (Gati & Saka, 2001).
Therefore, both school and family should adaptively prepare youth for their future work lives.
Interventions have been successfully implemented to teach career decision-making skills to high
school students (Jepsen, Dustin, & Miars, 1982; Savickas, 1997). The career awareness and the
acquisition of career decision-making skills are crucial especially when students transition from
high school to further education or occupation (Lankard, 1991). Providing career guidance
activities and employ high school guidance counselors can provide integrated programs using
career development theories as the basis for their comprehensive program (Krass & Hughey,
1999).
21st Century Life and Career Skills
There are lots of researches and studies about future life and career skills. World
Economic Forum (2016) collected a core set of 35 work-relevant skills and abilities that are
widely used across all industry sectors and job families. And in that report, the finding was that
“these practical skills will be subject to accelerating change and significant disruption in the
immediate future. On average, by 2020, more than a third of the desired core skill sets of most
occupations will be comprised of skills that are not yet considered crucial to the job today,
according to our respondents”. The report then reveals that social skills - such as persuasion,
emotional intelligence and teaching others - will be in higher demand across industries than
narrow technical skills, content skills such as active learning, cognitive abilities such as
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 34

creativity and mathematical reasoning and process skills such as active listening and critical
thinking will be a growing part of the core skills requirements for many industries. In summary,
high degree of cognitive skills such as creativity, logical reasoning and problem sensitivity are
the core skill set for the future. It calls for a re-thinking in the innovation of education systems.
The college and career readiness are the new direction for K-12 education. Parents,
teachers, school administrators and policy makers require a clear vision of what our current
students need to learn to be successful in the future global workplace (Trilling, Fadel, &
Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2009). Representing over 5 million members of the global
workforce, P21 is a national nonprofit organization that advocates for 21st century readiness for
every student. It leads the conversation about what 21st century learning looks like, in policy, in
school and in the workplace. To thrive as tomorrow’s global citizen, P21 identified a profound
gap between the knowledge and skills most students learn in school and those required for
success in globally and digitally interconnected workplace. It defines 21st century life and
career skills are flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural
skills, productivity and accountability, leadership and responsibility (Partnership for 21st
Century Skills, n.d.c.).
Flexibility and adaptability. It refers to capability to adapt to changes, such as varied
roles, jobs responsibilities, schedules and context (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, n.d.c.).
The future of work requires competencies such as dealing with ambiguity and being flexible with
changing priorities. It also relates to students’ ability to deal positively with praise, setbacks and
criticism and understand diverse view and beliefs in multi-cultural environments.
Initiative and self-direction. This is about setting goals and balance the short-term and
long-term goals (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, n.d.c.). High school in China is
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 35

predominantly teacher-driven and university suddenly become student-driven. Developing skills
to work independently and transforming to be a self-directed learner is a critical issue in high
school. Students shall learn how to monitor, define, prioritize and complete tasks without direct
oversight, how to utilize time and manage workload efficiently, in a proactive manner. Parents
need to guide students to reflect on previous experience to develop life-learning capability.
Social and cross-cultural skills. Students need to develop respectable, professional
manner to interact effectively with others with diverse social and cultural background
(Partnership for 21st Century Skills, n.d.c.). Parents need to coach students how to respond
open-mindedly to different ideas and values. Parents may lead their children to see the examples
of how to leverage social and cultural differences to create new ideas and increase both
innovation and quality of work.
Productivity and accountability. Future workplace involved manage different projects
simultaneously (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, n.d.c.). How to prioritize, plan and manage
work to achieve the intended result is key in this respect. Parents need to guide students how to
manage time, participate actively and punctual, collaborate effectively with team and
accountable for results.
Leadership and responsibility. This demonstrates integrity and ethical behavior in
using influence and power (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, n.d.c.). Mastering an art to guide
and lead others, students are able to inspire others to reach their very best via example and
selflessness. Parents could be the role model for students in shaping the mindset and develop the
skills.
Career-related decisions have significant impacts on people’s lifestyle, emotional
welfare, economic and social status, their relations with social surroundings and their
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 36

contributions to the society. Lack of information about the self and lack of ability in clarifying
individual’s preference are the major causes of career indecision (Gati, Krausz, & Osipow,
1996).
The Role of Parents
Substantial researches are on the family influence on children development. Although
schools, peers, and the living environment have some levels of impacts on the students’ self-
identity and career choice, the expectations and perceptions of parents on vocational fit for their
children have been found to be the key players in shaping career choices of their children. The
career development path, the decision-making style and the behaviors adolescents carry out are a
part of the complicated family influence (Young, Ball, Wong, & Young, 2001). Both life design
approach and social cognitive approach emphasize the parents’ role in children’s development,
in several factors such as the family forms, parents’ attitudes and behaviors, culture and beliefs
and the lifestyles. Parental involvement in children’s education is a critical factor associated
with children’s socio-emotional and educational outcomes (Wang, Deng, & Yang, 2016). The
level of parental education, family size, employment and socioeconomic variables like parental
income are major influencing factors to students’ occupational goals. Young et al. (2001)
emphasized that parents and children co-constructed the young adult’s career to address the
socioeconomic uncertainty.
Parents’ Guidance
The first responsibility of educating a child rests with the parents and thereafter, becomes
a shared responsibility with the school and the community at large. Children learn more from
parents though schools usually ignore parental input in the education of their children and
consequently their career choices. Parents, who lived with their children and know the interests,
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 37

abilities and personalities of their children, tend to have influence on decisions children make
(Hoghughi et al., 2004). However, understanding the influential factors that parents have on
career choice of children is not clear despite the unique and critical impact parents hold in this
matter.
Life and career development path involve millions of decisions to make. The school and
the teacher could provide general guidance, however, the career guidance to each student should
be individualized and tailor-made. Therefore, if parents have the right skills in providing career
guidance, they can have personalized conversation with students to co-construct the career plan
with short-term and long-term goal setting. Parents’ support will help students choose, prepare
and develop skills, test interest, identify strength and build confidence. With right career
guidance, the students’ motivation will be strengthened and their performance in the education
will become better (Gysbers, 2008).
Bandura et al. (2001) illustrated many factors influencing career choices such as social
economic status, education attainment, financial status and family support. They can either be
intrinsic or extrinsic or both. However, most people are influenced by careers that their parents
favor, others follow the careers that their educational choices have opened for them, some choose
to follow their passion regardless of how much or little it will make them while others choose the
careers that give high income. Morsel (2009) stated when parents made it clear that they had no
specific expectations for their children’s career choices, children often felt free to explore a
greater variety of professions, choosing based on their own preferences instead of those of their
parents.
Perry, Liu and Pabian, (2010) mentioned parent guidance on career has been recognized
as an important factor in enhancing students’ career confidence and planning. Adolescents who
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 38

felt that they could meet parental expectations in the career and academic areas demonstrated a
great capacity to deal with career-related problems (Leung et al., 2011). In collectivist culture,
adolescents also anticipate that they are perceived to be line with parental wishes, they are
supported by parents, and they are able to make parents satisfied (Sawitri, Creed, & Zimmer-
Gembeck, 2014).
Family-School Partnership
Family and school are among the two most important environments that are associated
closely with adolescents’ development (Lohman et al., 2007). Bronfenbrenner (1992) presents
system-ecological theory as a conceptual framework for developing a reciprocal relation between
family and school, together with the students, forming an eco-system with the purpose of
students’ development. The effective partnership occurs when parents and the school collaborate
towards a shared goal of improving outcomes for students. Researchers found that there is a
positive relationship between parent-teacher partnerships and student development, especially
when the school and families shared same goal (Deng et al., 2018). At the school level, strong
leadership and administrative support are essential to meaningful and quality family involvement
(Christenson, 2004).
Parent’ Guide for 21st Century Citizenship
Trilling et al. (2009) advocates that every teacher and parent should understand the 21st
Century skills so they can prepare their children and their students to solve the problems of
tomorrow. They further emphasized that it is of great need for each parent to prepare and get
involved in the progression process of their children’s career and it is critical for students to
graduate ready with right skills: civically literate, globally competent and digitally literate.
Today’s students will enter a job market with innovation and creativity, globally connected, and
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 39

they will live with an expanded civic life with information overflow the world. Parent, family
and schools play a key role by supporting necessary skills development, which lead to mindset
reshaping towards future dynamics (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, n.d.a.). Reinforcing the
importance of these skills through activities at home, in line with what delivered at school,
parents on the one hand can reduce the anxiety of the family, on the other hand, can help their
children better prepared for the future challenges in the workplace.
Career-Related Parent Support Scale (CRPSS)
Sawitri et al. (2014) highlighted the key roles that students perceived parental career
support in positive relationship to the expectation outcome. Career-Related Parent Support Scale
(CRPSS) is to assess participants’ perceptions of the way their parents provided educational and
career-oriented efficacy information (Turner, Alliman-Brissett, Lapan, Udipi, & Ergun, 2003).
The CRPSS (Turner et al., 2003) was translated and modified to form the 24-item Chinese
version of the scale. The results of the exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor
analysis suggested that the Chinese version of the CRPSS provided adequate indicators of
Chinese adolescents’ perceptions of parent support for their career aspirations (Cheng & Yuen,
2012). CRPSS could be used as an evaluation tool after the implementation of the career-related
parent support program. CRPSS include four subscales, which are instructional assistance (IA),
emotional support (ES), career-related modeling (CM) and verbal encouragement (VE), with a
total of 20 questions.
Little is known by parents themselves on how huge their impact is on career choices
made by their children. Parents are seen to be most commonly consulted for young adults as
influential sources of career advice. They are critical especially in the transition from school to
the world of employment as they have influence on the career path of children. Children’s
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 40

perceptions of parental support have a strong impact on their abilities, their career interests and
choices. Parents should have awareness of the importance of their role and they should be taught
how to increase their children’s self-efficacy beliefs (Ginevra, Nota, & Ferrari, 2013). Pursuing
a career is an essential factor in gaining independence, achieving social inclusion and ensuring
equal participation in all aspects of life. The ability to make quality decision should be developed
during adolescence. Guerra, Modecki, & Cunningham (2014) defined effective decision making
as the capacity to anticipate real-world scenarios, pay attention to relevant cues, consider
perspectives and make effective choices across varied situations and contexts, including stressful
or challenging circumstances. Through self-exploration, planning and taking actions, reflections
under proper guidance from parents, young adults can sharpen their decision-making skills,
identify their interest and formulate a career goal.
Career Guidance in China
The above literature reveals that it is critical to make sure that career development
intervention, especially career-related parent support, is in place in education settings and
especially in high school. Many countries have pursued education reforms and China over the
last decades have been trying to learn from the Western world about best practices and advanced
theories in child development including providing career guidance in education settings.
The development of career guidance is in line with the transformation of society and
economy. China’s current market-oriented economy, being shifted from the planning nature
defined by the ideal Marxist system, brought a dramatic revolution to the Chinese employment
system. In this context, China’s career intervention was transitioned from fully regulated
government arrangement to the choice of individuals. The job-placement system was operated
by the Labor Bureau in the communist planned economy to assign jobs to everyone. All the
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 41

people recruited by the state sector were guaranteed lifelong jobs and their children could take on
their parents’ jobs after their parents had retired. This was known as “Iron Rice Bowl” (Zhang,
Hu, & Pope, 2002). Zhang, Hu and Pope (2002) introduced the history of career guidance in
China starting from 1917 as the beginning of vocational guidance, moving to reorientation of
vocational education and guidance in 1950 after the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
Career guidance was abandoned in 1966 during the Cultural Revolution. After the Cultural
Revolution ended in 1976, transiting to an experimental period in 1996 and an expansion period
in 1990 to the current international collaboration stage starting from 1997. Although the history
is long, the real development of career guidance spans just about two decades. It becomes
increasingly important with burgeoning of opportunities and the freedom of choice. The
development history of career guidance in China has many similarities as that of Western
countries.
Why Career Guidance is Needed in China
The globalization and changing labor markets call for individualized career guidance.
However, China’s collectivistic and interpersonal related family-oriented culture, along with
traditional Confucianism have serious impact on the development of career guidance in its
delivery. Chinese individuals mostly turn to friends or family when they encounter career
problems. They do not believe in career development professionals and there is indeed a big gap
of the well-trained career consultants in China.
Several studies state that in China 10-30% of adolescents demonstrated emotional or
behavioral problems (Liu, Tein & Zhao, 2004; Liu et al., 2000). Liu et al. (2000) emphasized
that career guidance is important to the mental health of adolescents. Without career-related
support, students may potentially go towards the wrong direction or make detours and with less
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 42

or no preparation for 21st global workplace, which will obstruct their pursuit of a meaningful life
and their continuous learning to make a positive impact on their society and community.
There are two prevalent social phenomena in China. One is NEET (not in education,
employment, or training) problem, which refers to the group of children who are living with
parents and not doing anything productive in society. According to the statistic released by China
Research Center on Aging (2010), older generation raising younger generation is a normal
existence in more than 65% of Chinese families in cities, about 30% of adults need money from
their parents to be part or even all of their living expense (Wang, 2011). NEET youth can be
either unemployed or inactive and not involved in education or training. They generally lack the
skills to improve their economic situation and rely on their parents most of the time. The other
more common social phenomenon is students who become unemployed after graduation,
because they could not find a job due to a variety of reasons (“High School Students,” 2017).
The common attributes of the two groups are the lack of confidence, weak decision-making
capabilities and no self-evaluation nor self-planning. In terms of traits, they have low score of
situational self-awareness, agility and adaptability (“High School Students,” 2017).
Why Chinese Parents’ Role is Important
One recent national survey on career planning status for students in high school and
university in China reported that 53% of the students stated that parents are the most important
influential factor and only 39% of the students chose teachers (“High School Students,” 2017).
This survey also indicated that while enrolled in a university, 63.8% of the students did not think
carefully about their career choices before university enrollment, 65.5% of the university
students wanted to change their major, and only 13.9% of the students expressed interests in their
current major.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 43

The Confucian tradition has a major influence on the value and behavior of parents and
children. Nelson, Badger, and Wu (2004) listed Chinese beliefs such as respect for elders,
deference, obedience to authority, and also, of endurance, learning to bear one’s problems,
hardworking, maintaining social face and avoiding embarrassment. Chinese value caution rather
than adventure. Obedience, conformity and cooperation are the guiding principle of many
Chinese families. Parents with collective culture imprint teach children how to control of one’s
emotions, becoming less self-oriented, developing greater consideration for others, and
demonstrating a commitment to others (Nelson et al. 2004). In this regard, students’ choice of
school, behaviors and values are heavily influenced by parents in China.
Chinese parents are more outcome based with little emphasis on the holistic development
of students. The education of a child is the top priority for a Chinese family and children receive
more attention and care from their parents and grandparents than previous generations. Zhao,
Selman, and Haste (2015) identified that parents and students are at toxic levels of exam-related
stress and China’s education system produced graduates with high scores, low ability, and poor
health, which has become a grave social problem in Chinese society. In China under the
pressure of gaokao, the strict one-time national college entrance exam, parents are willing to
invest more effort and money on strengthening knowledge acquisition to achieve high academic
performance. The education courses and curriculum are test-oriented with high emphasis on rote
learning. Chinese tradition emphasizes academic achievement and extensive parental and grand-
parental involvement to promote children’s school success. Parents believe that earning high
score is a guarantee to get admission to top university and therefore leads to high probability that
they can find a good job (Zhao et al., 2015). Parents tend to invest more on the items that they
value the most. Parents from the East invest more than those from the West on education. Data
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 44

indicated that 93% of the Chinese parents are willing to pay tutoring expenses, while only 23%
of the British parents would do so (Wang, 2017).
Parents who are against an education system that encourages memorization and deference
to authority and who do not believe in test-based score-oriented selection process, they chose
international or private schools with plans to send their children abroad to avoid gaokao.
However, most parents rely on school consultant and agency to introduce best quality university
for their children. Under this situation, the challenge would be the question of adaption into
western university environment without proper preparation (Zhu, 2016).
Current Policy Changes
Some key policy initiatives enacted in recent decades, such as The Rejuvenation Action
Plan for Education 2003–2007 by the Ministry of Education in 2004, The Outline of the National
Mid- and Long-term Plan for Educational Reform and Development 2010–2020 by the State
Council in 2010. Since the 2000s policy themes in education development have been centered
and become more focused on four national discourses in China: equality in terms of a democratic
mission of education for every citizen, quality in terms of individual and social productivity,
efficiency as a national priority based on practicality, and rejuvenation of the nation for nation
building and global status (Li, 2017). The four major themes of policy initiatives are not
exclusive of each other but are all inter-related and interdependent in many aspects. Meanwhile,
these themes have been highlighted dynamically and pragmatically over time.
Facing mounting criticism of the education system, at the turn of the twenty-first century,
the Chinese central government began to issue new policies on a regular basis for the purposes of
narrowing gaps among schools and reducing academic competition among students based solely
on test scores. In 2000, the Chinese Ministry of Education issued the “Urgent Regulations for
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 45

Alleviating the Academic Burden of Primary School Students.” The document set strict limits to
the number of required textbooks, the amount of homework, and the time students spent in
school. Later, similar regulations were also released on secondary education. The Ministry of
Education called for parents to help supervise the enforcement of these regulations, however, as
long as the gaokao is used as the single criterion for college admission, the Chinese education
system will continue to define academic success by external indicators that impose high pressure
on school, parents, and students to focus on increasing test scores, and produce students with low
levels of self-confidence and creativity (Zhao et al., 2015).
Gaokao, the national college entrance exam, is a single-time outcome-based test, and it
has been playing a life-threatening role to determine students’ future life chances. The exam has
been criticized for overemphasis on grades and a forced division between science and liberal
arts, with students obliged to choose one path or the other at an early stage (Li, 2017). Recent
rounds of education reforms started in 2014 and initial pilot project about the new gaokao system
was launched in Shanghai and eastern China’s Zhejiang province. Other provinces will reflect on
the implementations and make modifications. It is a long process and each city or province may
have different models. The new system offers more chances and wider choices, which gives
more pressure on the students to make decisions by themselves. The education reform in China,
together with the globalization in education and workplace, have provided increasing
opportunities and wider choice to students in their education and career (Fan & Leong, 2016). In
this context, researchers studying the Chinese context increasingly argue that career guidance in
high school is urgent and critical (Huang & Wang, 2014).
In the past, the major and the university choices after gaokao are usually made or heavily
influenced by parents. However, with the continuous efforts on the reform of gaokao, as part of
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 46

the Thirteenth Five-year National Plan (2016–2020) for Education by the Ministry of Education
(2010), and the increasing popular overseas education, students and parents now have more
choices and opportunities. Huang & Wang (2014) argued that the role of parents in Chinese
families, therefore, started to change from just providing financial support to nurturing the
overall belief and capability of their children.
Career Guidance in High School in Shanghai
Shanghai is taking the lead in the development of career guidance in China and has
exerted substantial influence on other provinces. In research sponsored by the Shanghai Pujiang
Program, Zhou et al. (2016) presented four stages in the development of career guidance and
counseling in education settings in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, from 1977 (after the
Cultural Revolution) to 2015, with an economic-political perspective.
In the first stage (1977–1992), job allocation was implemented by the government as a
mandatory regulation to meet the pressing demands for trained professionals in various
industries. In the second stage (1993–1999), job allocation was replaced by vocational guidance
as a service. In the third stage (2000–2011), there was a growth in career education, mainly in
colleges. The fourth stage (2012–2015) witnessed the boom of career counseling with the focus
transferring to secondary schools. (P.203)
The first National Conference of Career Guidance and Counseling was held in Shanghai
in 1996 (Zhang et al., 2002). In October 1993, the Shanghai Graduates Vocational Guidance
Center (SGVGC) was established. By 1999, vocational guidance was only offered to senior
college students. To promote national development of career intervention, the Ministry of
Education issued a document titled “Requirements on Career Curriculum for College Students”
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 47

in December 2007. In 2010, SGVGC changed name to the Shanghai Center for Student Affairs
(SGSA) to provide services to both college and secondary vocational schools.
Career adaptability in high school may portend adolescent adults’ career success over
time (Deng et al., 2018). High school students are facing extra pressure brought by the recent
reform of the college system and college entrance examination (Liu, 2015; Qu & Zhao, 2014),
which requires high school students to devote more time and energy in deciding which kind of
college to attend. As such, they are expected to improve their self-exploration and self-
management so as to prepare for college life ahead of time; however, they receive little support
from the school and their parents. In 2010 career guidance in high school was initiated by
Ministry of Education followed by the announcement of the Outline of Long-term Education
Reform and Development (Huang & Wang, 2014). Extensive efforts have since been made on a
variety of projects to enhance teachers’ capabilities and students program design, whereas the
role of parents, the connections between students and parents, teacher and parents, were
generally ignored, even though parents exert greater influences on Chinese students’ career
choices (Zhou et al., 2016).
Parents’ Knowledge, Motivation and Organizational Influences
Clark and Estes’ (2008) gap analysis in knowledge, motivation and organization
influences will support the selection of effective performance improvement programs. This
research-based method provides a framework to collect information around the big three causes.
And the information can be used to decide whether additional support is needed and to identify
the type of support required to achieve goals. In this context, the big three causes are parents’
knowledge and skills, their motivation to provide career guidance to their children and the
school’s barriers such as lack of facilities and missing or inadequate work process.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 48

Knowledge and Skills
The key stakeholder group for this research consists of the Chinese high school parents
with SUIS Gubei. The school’s goal is to prepare students for 21st century workplace. Along
with the school, parents can provide career-related guidance and support to their children in high
school to make sure their children are ready for the changing nature of the workplace and
economy. According to Ambrose, Bridges, DiPietro, Lovett, and Norman (2010), one’s prior
knowledge about a topic can either help or hinder their performance in the area. In the context of
this study, parents’ prior knowledge and experience can hinder their learning in providing career-
related support to their children. Based on the history of career development and career guidance
in Shanghai previously presented, the parents’ knowledge about career development is likely not
adequate to provide career guidance to their children.
This study will explore high school parents’ knowledge about career guidance, how to
provide guidance and how to reflect on their effectiveness in providing guidance about students’
readiness for 21st century global workplace. To analyze their knowledge in a comprehensive
manner, Krathwohl’s (2002) framework will be utilized. Krathwohl categorized knowledge into
three types: declarative (including factual and conceptual), procedural and metacognitive.
Factual knowledge refers to the knowledge of facts, details, and elements. Conceptual
knowledge refers to knowledge of principles, theories, and models. Both factual knowledge and
conceptual knowledge are combined to represent declarative knowledge, essentially aspects of
knowledge that can be articulated with facts, categories and structure. Procedural knowledge is
about how to do things. Metacognitive knowledge is about an individual’s self-awareness of his
or her thinking and learning (Rueda, 2011). Specifically, metacognition refers to the processes
used to plan, monitor, and assess one's understanding and performance. By adopting this
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 49

framework, the knowledge of current high school parents in Shanghai can be evaluated in each
type to identify possible gaps and ultimately, develop solutions to support them in providing
effective career guidance to their children.
Knowledge about career guidance to develop life and career skills for 21st century
global workplace. As an example of declarative knowledge needed by the parents, they need to
know that the concept of career guidance is not only about obtaining employment. Literature
reveals that most of the parents are likely to help their children to get a job through their network
and they think it is their responsibility to offer such help. At present, most high school parents
have received their education from 1993 to 1999 (Zhou et al., 2016) when job allocation started
to be replaced by free choice of the occupation. They were pushed to find a job by themselves,
with neither enough preparation nor proper guidance.
An “Outline for National Mid-Term and Long-Term Educational Reform and
Development Planning (2010–2020)” was released in 2011. It emphasized that education should
be individual-based, aiming to meet the developmental need of each student (Ministry of
Education, 2010). However, parental resistance is an important barrier to implementing the new
regulations. In part, this is due to the Chinese tradition that emphasizes academic achievement.
In fact, what makes parents a powerful force in the problem of academic stress is high-level
parental anxiety over their children’s gaining edges in academic and future job competition.
Chinese parents’ anxiety results from many social and economic factors, including unequal
distributions of human and material resources in secondary and higher education, fierce
competition for white-collar jobs among college graduates, the lack of a functioning social
security system, huge income gaps linked to educational credentials, and the high-stakes gaokao
that will decide their children’s fate (Zhao et al., 2015).
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 50

The government and the university did not have any experience in providing adequate
guidance and popular solutions at the time were to organize job fairs and job markets. The
career guidance the parents personally experienced was finding jobs through friends’ referral, via
media from advertising to job fairs (Yi, 2014). Therefore, the current parent group, in general,
did not receive well-structured career guidance during their adolescence. More important is that,
in contrast, the current students will face a much different, rapidly changing work context in this
globalized 21st century. The future global workplace is fluid with lots of uncertainty and most
of the future jobs do not exist today (Economic Graph Group, 2017). When these students enter
the workforce, they will face an innovation and creativity-driven economy, therefore parents
need not only to understand different ways of preparing for the workforce, they also need to
understand 21st century life and career skills. The study is going to evaluate parents’ conceptual
knowledge about career guidance to make their children ready for the 21st century global
workplace.
Knowledge about how to guide their children for 21st century skills. Procedural
knowledge refers to familiarity with procedures, techniques, and methods. It is difficult to
predict and plan for a set career goal in the context of complexity and constant change of the 21st
century world of work. Therefore, parents need to focus on the skills development in their effort
to give career guidance. P21 gives a list of necessary life and career skills for 21st century but
does not provide a desired process in giving career guidance. The process of developing skills is
like the process of learning. Mayer (2011) described the major learning process from goal-
setting to strength-finding and action plan development. Goal-setting is a planning process,
which puts meaning in people’s lives, helps them achieve their ambition, and sets up positive
expectation for achievements (Dembo & Seli, 2016). Students may not accurately know their
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 51

strengths. Therefore, strength-finding conversations between parents and children is likely to
give students a way to self-finding. It is important for parents to guide their children about
setting goals and developing action plans by themselves. The research will evaluate parents’
understanding of the process that required to learn to provide effective career guidance to their
children.
Lau et al. (2011) found that and Chinese parents had a higher level of home-based
involvement than school-based involvement. They are on average more involved in children’s
learning, beginning as early as childhood. Parental involvement in general declines from
elementary school to high school, and it is associated with academic results during the high
school years (Rozek et al., 2017), whereas mental development of students is generally ignored.
Data advised that 10-30% of adolescents demonstrated emotional or behavioral problems (Liu et
al., 2004; Liu et al., 2000). Career intervention is an important area for mental health of
adolescents. Without career-related parent support, students might go towards the wrong
direction or make detours, which will obstruct their pursuit of a meaningful life and making
positive impact to the society and community.
Knowledge about how to reflect on their own effectiveness in providing guidance.
Metacognitive knowledge emphasizes knowledge of cognition and awareness of one’s own
thoughts and actions. It allows people to know when and why to do something. And it is also a
main kind of strategic behavior when people have to solve problems (Rueda, 2011). Parents
need to consider the contextual and conditional aspects of providing career guidance, reflect on
their communication strategies and communication style. Parents need to know that in many
ways they affect their children’s career choices, therefore they need to be encouraged to think
about why and when new ways of communication can be applied and seek feedback from their
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 52

children, the school administrator and teacher, and other parents in the parents support group to
make sure that they can provide appropriate guidance. Reflecting on issues such as what
influence as parents need to exert on, who is around the children, what opportunities parents
offer to the children to learn and develop, reflecting on style more of liberal parents who allow
children to mix with anybody or as being over-protective, reflecting on expectation that more
giving than return or vice versa, all these could address the challenges parents encounter in
providing better and effective career guidance to their children. This research will evaluate
parents’ metacognitively awareness of their capability, styles, strengths and challenges
supporting their children in understanding their personalities, values, skills and abilities.
Table 2
Assumed Knowledge Influences
Assumed Knowledge Influence Knowledge Type
Parents need to understand that career
guidance is to develop life and career skills
for 21st century global workplace
Declarative (Conceptual)

Parents need to know how to guide their
children for 21st century skills.
Procedural

Parents need to know how to reflect on their
own effectiveness in providing guidance.
Metacognitive

Motivation
In addition to knowledge, motivation is a key influence on performance (Clark & Estes,
2008). Knowledge tells us how to do things with the accumulation of experience, while
motivation sets direction and enables persistence to accomplish things (Clark & Estes, 2008).
Clark (1999) identified motivation problems using the indexes of active choice, persistence and
mental effort. Active choice refers to having the intent to act but failing to follow through on the
action. Persistence refers to an individual being motivated to start a goal but is then distracted by
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 53

other goals and interests and thus stops working on the task at hand. Mental effort refers to
individuals failing to utilize new knowledge to solve a problem.
Wigfield and Eccles (2000) developed expectancy value theory (EVT), which has been a
long-standing perspective on motivation. The theory explains an individual’s choice,
persistence, and performance as being directed by their beliefs about how well they will do on
the activity and the extent to which they value the activity. EVT enables understanding
individual actions based on whether they are seen as valuable and whether an individual
perceives that they can be successful at the task.
Value refers to the importance one attaches to a task, Wigfield and Eccles (2000)
developed four dimensions of task value: attainment or importance value, intrinsic value, utility
value and cost value. Attainment value refers to the importance one attaches to doing well on a
task. Intrinsic value refers to the enjoyment one experiences in an activity. Utility value refers
to how useful one believes a task is for achieving some future goal, and finally cost value is the
perceived cost of the activity in terms of time and effort. This study seeks to understand parents’
level of motivation to engage in career guidance process.
Parents’ value for career guidance. Parents need to know the importance of their role
in influencing students career decision making. They need to understand career guidance to
young adults is highly critical. In fact, Chinese parents’ roe is often misunderstood and
misplaced. In China, children and young adolescents are believed to be too young to think about
career issues; therefore, they are not expected to be engaged in any conversation concerning
career planning (Zhou et al., 2016). Parents’ attitude towards child development either go to
overprotection or to another extreme of neglect. There is an old saying in China: “Education
changes fate.” Chinese parents are known for their high expectation of their children and 54% of
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 54

the Chinese parents from the survey (Wang, 2017) indicated their desire to send their children
abroad for education. China’s only child policy has been enforced in cities since 1979 therefore
the child’s academic and future success is parents’ only hope (Fong, 2004). Most parents treat
their son and daughter’s success as their success.
In today’s China, parents become one of the most anxious groups, with increasing peer
pressure facing fierce social competition. Yi (2014) stated that the presence of anxiety among
parents often has a negative impact on students, negatively impacting students’ skill
development (Yi, 2014). He found that not many parents is learning how to coach and educate
their children to grow, to identify their interest and to fight to reach their full potential. “Don’t
lose at the starting line,” another common saying in China, reflects a common belief of majority
of parents. After spending much effort and money to find the best available school for their
children, parents tend to have high expectations of the school for the student development. And
their high expectation in the high school falls into academic success only due to the serious
pressure of gaokao.
This study will explore how important and useful parents believe career guidance is for
their students’ development. Having awareness of the importance and usefulness for parents to
develop life and career skills of their children, will increase their likelihood to actively
participate and engage in the career-related parent support program.
Parents’ attributions for career guidance success. In China, most parents think that
their responsibilities are to find the best available schools for their children, and after that it
should be the school’s responsibilities for student development. They believe that good schools
can prepare the students for college life and teachers assume the major responsibility to develop
their children (Yi, 2014). It is a common belief that parents have only a supporting role to help
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 55

teachers supervise students’ academic performance (“High School Students,” 2017). Among the
high schools that provide preliminary career guidance programs, the surveys indicated that only
10% of the students expressed satisfaction with the program, while 78% were somewhat
dissatisfied and 12% were very dissatisfied (“High School Students,” 2017).
Yi (2014) stated that parents provide suggestions to schools, but mostly concerning
academic and administrative areas. And they relied on after-school tutoring to improve their
children’s academic performance. Parents are willing to invest money instead of time since they
believe finding an effective teacher and a high-quality school are their responsibilities. Yi
(2014) further listed several serious educational problems in China, such as that 70% of the
families in China rely on grandparenting to offset the absence of a father’s role in family
education since young parents are spending more time in their stressful work. Parents think that
they should try to earn more money to support the increasingly expensive education cost for their
children, and especially when sending their children abroad for higher education. However, they
are not willing to learn and reflect on their capability development as parents. Some would
argue that when they were young, their parents did not guide them, therefore students should rely
on themselves.
Parents need to feel that their role, in addition to that of the school, is critical in career
guidance and ultimately, students’ success in developing life and career skills that could make
them ready for the challenges of 21st century global workplace. This research will explore
parents’ current perceived role in providing career guidance in high school.
Parents’ self-efficacy for career support. Self-efficacy is defined as, “people’s
judgements of their capabilities to organize and execute the course of action required to attain
designated levels of performance” (Bandura, 1986, p.391). Eccles et al. (1983) stated that “one’s
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 56

perception of the value of an activity is more important in determining one’s decision to engage
in that activity, while one’s self-concept of ability is more important in determining one’s actual
performance” (p. 113).
After parents decide to engage in career guidance activities, they need to believe they are
capable of effectively guiding their children in the discussion of career-related topics. Based on
literature presented earlier, the current group of parents in high school did not have their own
experience of receiving career guidance from either the school nor their parents, therefore their
confidence level in terms of facilitating career conversation with their children might be low.
Based on self-efficacy theory, whether the parents believe they are capable of effectively guiding
their children contributes to their likelihood to engage in it, persist at it and invest the necessary
mental efforts.
Parents who believe that they can affect their children's development are more proactive
and successful in cultivating their children's competencies than parents who doubt they can much
to influence their children's developmental course (Bandura et al., 1996a). The developmental
benefits of parent's beliefs in their efficacy have been verified across different socio-economic
statuses and family structures, and in different cultural settings.

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 57

Table 3
Assumed Motivation Influences
Motivation Construct Assumed Motivation Influence
Utility Value Parents need to see the importance and usefulness in
providing career guidance to their children.
Attributions Parents should feel that their role, in addition to that of the
school, is critical in career guidance and ultimately,
students’ success in making a relevant and appropriate
career decision by themselves.
Self-Efficacy Parents need to believe they are capable of effectively
guiding their children in the discussion of career-related
topics.

Organizational Influences
In addition to considering possible knowledge and motivation gaps, it is necessary to look
at the organizational gaps that might impact the attainment of the goals. Rueda (2011) described
that culture and culture processes are not always visible nor easily accessible and they involve
values. Culture is a dynamic process that is jointly created and recreated by individuals in the
organization. The culture and culture process could be used to describe an organization.
Gallimore and Goldenberg (2001) pointed out that an organization’s culture can be
analyzed based on the cultural settings and cultural models that exist in it. Cultural settings are
concrete and include the employees, their tasks, how and why tasks are completed, and the social
context in which their work is performed. Cultural models refer to cultural practices and shared
mental schema within an organization (Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001). Organizations are made
up of various culture settings (social contexts) and characterized by culture models. The
reciprocal relationship between culture models and culture setting is thought of as dynamic and
interactional processes (Rueda, 2011). This study will explore the organizational influences that
can impact the school’s goal to preparing students for 21st century global workplace.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 58

A culture of collaboration. In order to support parents in engaging in career guidance,
the school needs to develop collaborative partnership with parents. SUIS Gubei is dedicated to
preparing students to become confident global citizens with international mindset. With this
mission in mind, both the school and the parents need to develop students’ life and career skills
to make them prepared for 21st century global workplace. This goal requires strong cooperation
between school and parents. Family-school cooperation has been emphasized, valued, and
implemented for years in mainland China (Deng et al., 2018). Policies have been implemented
to improve family-school partnership since 2004 (CPC Central Committee & the State Council,
2004). Following the policies, about 85% of high schools have established parent-teacher
associations. Constructive parent-teacher relationship is positively related to students’ academic,
career and personal development (Deng et al., 2018).
SUIS Gubei has already built good cooperation between school and parents, evidenced
by the regular meetings between the Parent Support Group and school administrators; however,
the level of the partnership will be evaluated in this study.
Creating a culture that recognizes parents as being an important part of students’
development. It is critical for the school to make an effort to engage parents effectively and let
all the parents understand the importance of their roles. The view that parents are essential for
children’s development is too often an implicit assumption in schools. However, the school may
not have explicit acknowledgement, particularly in school’s attitudes and actions (Christenson,
2004). Christenson (2004) mentioned that the school need to have constructive attitudes to
create an environment to increase parental responsibility. In practice, the constructive attitudes
are demonstrated by the school when school administrators and teachers listen to parents’
perspectives, view differences as strength, focus on mutual interests, share information to co-
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 59

construct understanding and intervention, respect the skills and knowledge of parents by asking
for ideas and opinions, and share in decision-making about children’s development. The level to
which the school currently engages with parents and whether a culture that parents seeing them
being an important part of the students’ development will be evaluated in this study.
Co-develop workshops and programs. In addition to the culture models, cultural
settings are also important. Cultural setting is a social context, which can be assessed by the
features including who, what, when, where, why, and how (Rueda, 2011). In SUIS Gubei, with
regard to the parent career guidance program, the following questions should be asked to
understand the cultural setting: who will design the program, what to design, when and how to
launch? With respect to building shared responsibility for children development, the school may
need to think about how to change the common practice of parent-teacher contacts to invite
parent participation and intervention in school programs (Christenson, 2004). The study seeks to
explore the experience parents have had to date in co-creating programs with the school.
Offer workshops at times that are conducive to parents. SUIS provides supports in
university selection and application guidance. They offer the parents meetings on workdays after
working hours. However, according to the feedback from PSG, only half of the parents join the
meeting, but the school does not know the reasons. The major assumptions are some parents
who did not participate are not interested in the topic and the times are not convenient for some
parents. This study will explore whether these workshops and meetings are offered at times that
are convenient to majority of the parents.

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 60

Table 4
Assumed Organizational Influences
Organizational Influence Category Assumed Organizational Influences

Cultural Model Influence 1 The school needs to have collaborative
partnership with parents.

Cultural Model Influence 2 The school needs to engage parents to
create a culture that parents as being an
important part of students’ development.

Cultural Setting Influence 1 The school needs to work together with
parents to codevelop workshops and
programs in developing students’ 21st
century skills.

Cultural Setting Influence 2 The school needs to offer workshops at
times that are conducive to parents’
participation.

Conclusion
Fan and Leong (2016) presents the function of family in career guidance has not yet
developed in mainland China since career intervention are currently carried out mostly by formal
organizations such as schools and universities. More research and studies are needed for career-
related parent support in China. Shanghai, as one of the pioneer cities to launch such programs,
will be targeted for research and studies. The above literature review demonstrated that in the
high school years, parent support in career guidance is important and should focus on self-
concept and future-oriented skills development.

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 61

CHAPTER THREE: METHODS
This chapter describes the mixed-methods approach that was used to conduct this study,
including the research design, sampling strategy, data collection and analysis, and
instrumentation methods. Creswell (2014) stated that mixed methods research generally uses a
pragmatic worldview and the researcher attempts to collect diverse types of data to generate a
more complete understanding of a research problem than either quantitative or qualitative data
alone would reveal. The mixed-methods approach incorporates both quantitative and qualitative
data to neutralize the weakness of one and to benefit from the convergence of both forms of data
(Merriam &Tisdell, 2016).
The purpose of this study was to examine parents’ knowledge, motivation and
organization influences related to providing career guidance to their children to prepare them for
the 21st century global workplace.
The quantitative and qualitative study is focused on the following research questions:
1. What are the parents’ knowledge and motivation related to career counseling to
achieve career-related support for their children?
2. What is the interaction between the school’s organization culture and context and the
parents’ knowledge and motivation?
3. What are the recommended improvement to equip parents more in the area of
knowledge, motivation, and organizational solutions for parents?
Participating Stakeholders
Following the direction of Merriam (2016) in terms of mixed-methods research, I used an
explanatory sequential design, which was collecting quantitative data first and according to the
analysis of the survey to develop better instrument, and then collecting qualitative data to
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 62

generate deep and meaning findings. The initial quantitative data results were explained further
with qualitative data (Creswell, 2014). I started by developing a quantitative survey exploring
parents’ attitudes and interests regarding to providing career guidance to their children. This
gave me important general information particularly about their motivation and organization
influence in SUIS Gubei. But such a survey was not able to tell me the level of parent’s
knowledge and their confidence, how they guide and facilitate the career conversations with their
children and the status of school and parent partnership. I then included a qualitative component
by conducting in-depth semi-structured interviews. I interviewed 13 survey respondents based
on purposeful criteria. By using the explanatory sequential mixed methods, I can yield richer
understanding of the question under study (Merriam, 2016).
SUIS Gubei is a privately-owned international school with 900 students from grade 6 to
grade 12. Since my study is focused on high school, the participants of my study only include
parents from grade 9 to grade 12, with a total of around 500 parents. Among the parents in high
school, most (according to the chairman of the PSG, around 80%) are Chinese parents. Given
my research focus on the career development in Chinese high schools in China, I selected only
Chinese parents as my participants. The survey was conducted in Mandarin and circulated to
around 400 Chinese parents from grade 9 to grade 12.
Survey Recruitment Strategy and Rationale
For my survey design, I collected data about parents’ attitude, opinion on school and their
knowledge and motivations. I received consent from both the school and the PSG and the PSG
leader of each grade circulated the mobile phone-based survey through WeChat platform to
make sure all the parents can receive it. Some of the parents volunteered to help me recirculate
to the sub-group to make sure that parents pay attention to it, which helped the response rate.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 63

Survey Sampling Criterion and Rationale
The participants must be Chinese parents of Children in grade 9 to grade 12. This is the
stakeholder population for this study focusing on high school career-related parent support in
China. Random sampling was used to get representative sample from the population to
generalize results of this research (Merriam, 2016). The survey was sent to all parents in
Mandarin and only Chinese parents’ feedbacks were included as the useful data to analyze. At
the beginning of the survey questions I asked whether the attendee is Chinese or not. The
number of Chinese parents in high school is roughly 400, as per what PSG leader’s calculation.
And in the survey, I checked if the parents studied university in China. If the survey respondent
replied no, the data will not be used for analysis. And this information was communicated in the
first introduction of the survey.
Interview Recruitment Strategy and Rationale
In the last section of the survey, I left a space for respondents to answer about their
willingness to join the follow-up one-hour interview session. I did a test interview with one PSG
member; the interview session was around one hour. If the answer is “yes,” they left their
contact information. I had planned to recruit 12 Chinese parents for the qualitative components
on a voluntary basis. And in the end, I did 13 interviews, by contacting the messages they left
and through referrals. Maxwell (2013) suggests using a snowball sampling technique to identify
additional participants who can add rich information to answer the research questions.
Interviewees were asked if they know other parents that might provide additional insight on
career guidance to their children. Initially the number of voluntary respondents was less than 12,
I then leveraged the support from PSG representatives to recommend candidates and prefer male
candidates. PSG recommended several fathers. This purposeful nonrandom sampling is based
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 64

on participants’ relevant knowledge and experience and their willingness to participate in the
research (Maxwell, 2013; Merriam, 2016).
Interview Sampling Criterion and Rationale
Criterion 1. The participants must be Chinese parents of children from grade 9 to grade
12. This is the stakeholder population for this study focusing on high school career-related
parent support in China.
Criterion 2. The Chinese parents who completed their university study in China were
purposefully prioritized and interviewed first in the interviewing process. This is based on the
literature review that this group of people have experienced little guidance from both family and
school in their own career pursuing path. And with little response in survey from fathers, I tried
to reach out more male interviewees to enrich the qualitative data. With these criteria,
participants were deliberately selected to provide most relevant information to address the
research questions (Maxwell, 2013).
Data Collection and Instrumentation
To get rich information about parents’ knowledge, motivation and organization
influences related to providing career guidance to their children to make them prepared for the
21st century global workplace, the data collection was designed in two phases through an
explanatory sequential mixed methods design. The first phase involved random sampling of
survey respondents from the large population including all parents in high school in SUIS Gubei.
I received agreement from both the school and PSG in launching the survey from a mobile phone
platform. A letter to all parents introducing the project and my background was circulated to all
parents before the launch of survey and interview. And the PSG leader was motivated to help
communicate with parents if they had questions. I was participated in an online parents group to
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 65

answer any questions from parents. Once the response rate was over 20%, I started to analyze
the data and recruited interviewees for the next qualitative study. After analyzing the data,
interview instrument was rebuilt based on the quantitative results, the qualitatively data was
collected from purposeful sampling in this population.
Surveys
My research is a needs analysis, therefore survey questions were developed to address
research questions, with a focus on parents’ knowledge, motivation and organization influences.
I translated the instruments and provided the survey in Mandarin. The survey was anonymous.
The first three questions in the survey were about the general information regarding to child’s
grade, parent’s gender and if the respondent studied university in China or not. The purpose of
getting this information was to select useful data to analyze for the survey result. Those who are
not Chinese parents can continue to take the survey but at the beginning of the survey I informed
the participants that only Chinese parents’ data would be analyzed and the result would be
announced after the analysis. Forward and backward translation were used in the process. In the
content of the instrument, both continuous scales and categorical scales were used in the survey
questions. The Likert scale was most often used in the survey to tell how closely the respondents
agree or disagree with a statement. Multiple-choice, closed survey questions were used. In order
to make sure that each question is meaning to respondents, standard language was used, and the
questions were close to respondent’s personal experience. I tried to avoid biased words and
phrases and checked my own biases. And I made sure not to ask personal information. The
survey protocol is provided in the appendix.
I used pilot testing in the PSG to establish the content validity of items. A group of ten
tested the instrument and I incorporated their comments into the final instrument revision. The
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 66

pilot test was able to reveal whether people understand the directions I had provided and whether
they could answer the survey questions. And it can tell me how much time it took respondents to
complete the survey. This helped me make sure the survey run smoothly.
The survey started in September 2018, with the support from PSG, the survey was sent
by WeChat (a Chinese multi-purpose messaging, social media and mobile payment app) to all
parents in grade 9 to grade 12. Both the school and parents support group agreed to help on this.
The estimated percentage of my sample that will respond is around 10-20% according to
the historical survey response data from PSG. To increase survey response rates, I sent a
WeChat introduction about the purpose of the research and my background two weeks before the
survey. And the WeChat notification was sent twice after the first sending out. The final
response rate reached 24.5%.
Interviews
Qualitative research uses interview to examine how people make meaning (Merriam,
2016). During the interviews, the data about the interviewee’s experience, perspective,
knowledge and insights were collected. In my interview instrument, open-ended questions were
structured to help gather rich information about parents’ thoughts, belief, attitude, knowledge,
behaviors, perspectives, motivation and feelings related to providing career guidance to their
children. The interview process was semi-structured, with follow-up questions and
conversations that could naturally emerge new information. I explored and probed new ideas
and uncovered rich data to analyze in addressing my research questions.
The interviews took place in Shanghai between November 2018 and December 2018.
They were in formal settings, convenience to participants was considered. I travelled to
interviews and did phone interview if the interviewee proposed. Several interviewees were
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 67

invited to my office for discussions. I reached out 13 participants for the interview and each
interview was around one hour. A set of questions were developed using Merriam and Tisdell’s
(2016) four major categories of questions: hypothetical, devil’s advocate, ideal position and
interpretive to retrieve meaning data from the participants. The interview protocol is provided in
appendix.
As a way to reciprocate their efforts, I offered free conversation after the interview for
career coaching and an incentive of RMB100 per interview. The interview was conducted in
Mandarin and I translated my interview protocol in Mandarin. Forward and backward
translation were used to ensure 100% correct in meaning.
The interview protocol and process were emergent when eliciting ideas and opinions. I
reflected about my personal background, assumption, culture and experiences I held to avoid the
tendency to search for, interpret and favor information in a way that confirmed my preexisting
beliefs or hypotheses.
Data Analysis
Organizing and managing survey data is an essential part of data analysis (quote).
Creating a codebook or operational manual was needed before data analysis. All variables were
broken down to discrete units called values, which correspond to the codes for that variable. For
survey responses, I stopped once the response rate was over 20%, frequencies were calculated. I
run them again and again until that the survey was running smoothly. All survey returns were
reviewed for missing data in pilot test to make sure it would not happen in large roll out of the
survey. For the stakeholder group I was studying, means and standards deviation were presented
to identify average levels of responses. Descriptive statistical analysis was conducted once all
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 68

survey results are submitted. Pearson correlation analysis was also used to analyze the
relationship between two variables.
For interviews and observations, data analysis began during data collection. I wrote
analytic memos after each interview and each observation. I documented my thoughts, concerns,
and initial conclusions about the data in relation to my conceptual framework and research
questions. Once I left the field, interviews were transcribed and coded.
In the first phase of analysis, I used open coding, looking for empirical codes and
applying a priori codes from the conceptual framework. A second phase of analysis was
conducted where empirical and a prior code were aggregated into analytic/axial codes. In the
third phase of data analysis I identified pattern codes and themes that emerged in relation to the
conceptual framework and study questions. I analyzed documents and artifacts for evidence
consistent with the concepts in the conceptual framework.
Credibility and Trustworthiness
Merriam and Tisdell (2016) mentioned that it is hard to avoid some threats to validity.
Maxwell (2013) stated that researcher bias and reactivity are the two validity threats qualitative
researchers should attempt to mitigate in the research. Gibbs (2007) states that qualitative
validity means to check the accuracy of the findings by use of certain procedures, while
qualitative reliability indicates that researcher’s approach is consistent across different
researchers and different projects. Creswell (2014) suggests that triangulation, member
checking, bias check are effective methods to enhance the accuracy of findings and increase the
validity and reliability of the research. I used mixed methods to collect both qualitative and
quantitative data source of information, which is a type of triangulation, and I took the
description or some preliminary findings back to participants and determine whether these data
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 69

and interpretation were accurate. I did follow-up interview with several participants in the study
and provided an opportunity for them to comment on the findings.
In addition, presenting negative or discrepant information is also a way to enhance
validity and reliability of the research. By presenting contradictory evidence, discussing them
will make the research more realistic and more valid (Creswell, 2014). The self-reporting survey
result will potentially threaten validity, so how to frame items to decrease this potential should be
considered. In the interview, effective engagement with participants reduced the risk that they
were not telling the truth of their ideas. I did reflection as per Merriam (2016) suggested after
each interview. Critical self-reflections were needed to find my bias, in terms of instrument,
whether there was leading language, data collection, my attitude, conscious in terms of how
people see me, etc.
During the entire process, I conducted self-reflection and tried to understand how my
interpretation of the findings was shaped by my background and experience. Researchers should
engage the whole practice to increase the trustworthiness and credibility of their study (Merriam,
2016). To mitigate credibility and trustworthiness issues, I needed to document the procedures
and as many of the steps of the procedures as possible. From the design of the research, I needed
to have careful attention to the conceptualization and the way of data collection and analysis,
applying standards well-developed and accepted by the scientific community. My survey and
interview were conducted in Mandarin. I used forward and backward translation to make sure of
the accuracy. During the development of the survey and interview questions, I had a strategy for
establishing the authenticity and trustworthiness of my study. Mixed methods were chosen after
the development of my research questions. During the interview, I have built trust with my
participants, effectively engage them to make sure they were transparent and candid in the
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interviews. After the interview, I checked the transcripts to make sure that they did not contain
obvious mistakes made during transcription. In my dissertation, I made sure to cite correctly.
According to Merriam’s guidance, I also maintained an audit trial to document and save my
notes, transcript, decision-making history and reflections to ensure consistency and dependability
in my research. Making sure the rigor in the process, tracking my choices, saving the files,
discussing my choice and design, testing as what is supposed to test, all of these were done to
increase the credibility and trustworthiness of my research.
Validity and Reliability
A reliable survey results in consistent information and a valid survey produces accurate
information (Fink, 2017). Each of the critical knowledge, motivation, and organizational needs
were validated through the collection of quantitative data. Questions were developed grounded
in theory of motivation, life design model and 21st century career and life skills defined by P21.
All these were for my purpose to understand the current high school parents’ knowledge and
motivation of providing career guidance to their children and their perceptions on school’s
support in this regard. The pilot test helped validate proper designing of the survey in retrieving
data and in user experience feedback. The initial group of parents’ feedback and possible
missing data could help correct the directions and identify bias. Before conducting survey, the
codebook and operation manual were reviewed to make sure reliable coding. The KMO
framework and sub-concepts were the first level of a code book. In summary, a well-designed,
easy-to-use survey contributes to validity and reliability (Fink, 2017).
Ethics
Researchers should make sure that participants are not harmed because of a research
study and researchers must behave ethically throughout the research process (Merriam, 2016).
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 71

Confidentiality of the data were maintained carefully. Before the survey and interview,
transparent communication about my research topic and process was communicated to the
population through WeChat messages. I made sure that parents were not coerced to join the
research. I explained that the study was submitted to the University of Southern California
institutional review board (IRB) and was conducted under IRB rules and guidelines to safeguard
the participants. I told parents why the research topic was important and what would be the
benefits for all parents.
Since I am one of the G9 parents in SUIS Gubei, parents who participated the interview
might have concerns about the confidentiality of their personal information. I gave enough
information prior to the interview to make sure that participants trusted the confidentiality of the
process and data privacy. And I welcomed them visit my office to have a conversation with me
if they have concerns. Working together with the school and PSG, I communicated with the
participants that the information they provided were used appropriately. Qualitative interview
involved interaction with people to retrieve data for my research, a range of ethical and personal
issues were considered throughout the process from research design to data collection and
analysis. All survey and interview notes were kept in locked files. A clear explanation of the
procedures was planned before starting the research and I stayed in the WeChat group to answer
any inquiries if participants have. I told them that they were free to withdraw consent and
discontinue participation without prejudice.
According to Crewell (2014), I needed to explicitly identify and reflect on my biases,
values and personal background that shaped my interpretations formed during my study. In
sampling phase, I made sure participants agree to join my research on a voluntary basis. I made
sure that they were not coerced throughout the process. In the interview process, I got verbal
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 72

confirmation that each interviewer understood and accepted all aspects of the participation. I
gained permission to record, store and secure the data, and ensured that they knew they could
review the verbatim transcript and preliminary analysis from the data they provided. I made sure
all my questions do not interfere with personal privacy. I checked before the interview to make
sure participants were not feeling coerced or pressured to join my research. I explained my role
as a researcher and made sure to get their support before doing any of the research work.
Certainly, understanding my personal bias and disclosing my potential bias during the interview,
conducting careful reflection to overcome bias were critical to ensure that the interviewees were
protected in a safe and private manner.
Limitations and Delimitations
There are some limitations to this study. One limitation of the current study is the use of
data from only one private school in Shanghai, which sets the boundary for the generalization of
the research results. SUIS Gubei is a privately-owned international school in Shanghai to
prepare students to study abroad for the university. Its annual tuition is around RMB160,000, at
middle to high level, with the high at RMB300,000 and the low at RMB80,000. It is one of the
top ten private-owned international schools. Parents in private schools paid more attention in
investing on child education and according to research, most parents in SUIS Gubei have
university education in China and are willing to partner with the school to provide support for
their children’s development. The education level of the parents in the private school is high,
with 98 percent of respondents in the survey who claimed that they had their higher education
study in China. The study is limited by schools at similar scale and level.
The second major limitation is the inadequate data about fathers’ needs analysis since the
survey participants of fathers were of small amount. Although four fathers were invited for the
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 73

qualitative interviews, 30% of the voices from the fathers were not adequate. If the amount of
the fathers and the mothers are comparable in the survey respondents, a Pearson correlation
analysis on the fathers’ group and the mothers’ group can be used to generate more meaningful
results. By doing that, more tailor-made action plans are designed and implemented.
The third limitation is that students were neither surveyed nor interviewed in the process
so that their views on the importance of the parents’ career guidance were not collected and
evaluated. Students, as the objective group who benefit from the career related parental support,
should be considered as an important channel for feedback and perspectives. That’s why a
CRPSS survey is suggested to be administered to in the student body before the implementation
stage of the proposed solutions.
The research is on Chinese parents only, so it does not include parents from other origins.
The study is limited by this scope. The result of the research could be generalized to all
privately-owned schools in Shanghai, with the assumption that all the public schools do not have
any career-related parent support at this stage. However, whether the result could be applied in
public school settings is a question mark, more research could be conducted to support the
generalization.
Shanghai is the first-tier city in China and is one of the most advanced and well-
developed international metropolitan cities. The research result is valuable for generalization to
other first-tier cities. More researches could be done in the second-tier cities to validate the
findings.
The limitation of the study also includes the truthfulness of the participants in survey and
interview. In the interview, my presence may bias responses and not all people are equally
articulate and perceptive. The study was limited by time, knowledge, motivation and
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organization influences I selected for my conceptual framework. Delimitation choices I made
that had implications for the data I collected such as the question I asked, the number of
interviews in my study limits the scope of my study. My research, analysis and interpretation
were limited by the experience and viewpoints shared by interview participants. More research
on this topic in China is expected.

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CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND FINDINGS
The purpose of this study was to conduct a needs analysis for high school Chinese
parents with SUIS Gubei in the areas of their knowledge and skill, motivation, and
organizational resources necessary to reach the organizational performance goal. This chapter
presents the findings as they pertain to assumed causes identified in Chapter Three, with a
summary of findings at the end of each section. Recommendation will be provided in Chapter 5
to address these validated causes and new findings that impact the need for high school parents
to provide career guidance to their children and achieving SUIS Gubei’s goal to develop students
for the 21st century global workplace.
To examine Chinese parents’ knowledge, motivation and organizational influence
regarding career-related parent support, a survey was conducted as the first step of data
collection. The first three questions to collect parents’ demographic information, question 7 and
8 ranked parents’ view with regard to the students’ future skills and question 9 was about the
frequency of communication, the rest of the questionnaires were all formatted in a six-point
Likert Scale to prevent people from choosing a neutral option. In all of the scales used in the
survey questions, respondents were asked to assess the degree to which they agreed with each
statement (1 as ‘Strongly Agree’ to 6 as ‘Strongly Disagree’); see Appendix A for a complete
copy of the survey instrument.
The survey was issued on a mobile platform to around 400 parents from Grade 9 to Grade
12 and received 98 respondents. The response rate reached 24.5%. Over 76% of the
respondents are in Grade 9 and 10 and 90.63% of the respondents are mothers. Figure 1 and
Figure 2 presents the detailed demographic information of the respondents.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 76

Figure 1. Grade information of the respondents.

Figure 2. Gender information of the respondents.
According to survey question 3, among 98 respondents, only two of them claimed that
they did not receive higher education in China during their adolescence. In order to conduct a
precise analysis of the data, the two who did not study in China during adolescence were deleted.
Data of 96 respondents were used for the survey analysis. Fathers were not active in getting
involved in the survey so efforts to recruit fathers in the interview were particularly made.
44.90%
30.61%
22.45%
2.04%
Grade 9
Grade 10
Grade 11
Grade 12
0.00% 5.00% 10.00% 15.00% 20.00% 25.00% 30.00% 35.00% 40.00% 45.00% 50.00%
Total Number of Respondents: 98
Pecentage of Survey Respondents
89
9
90.82%
9.18%
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Mother
Father
Role as parent
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 77

Based on the survey results, interview questions were reduced from 20 to 10 and a total of 13
qualitative interviews were conducted in October and November of 2018.
Knowledge Factors
To validate the assumed causes identified prior to data collection, surveys and interviews
were conducted to identify parents’ conceptual, procedural and metacognitive knowledge about
providing career guidance to their children. Most parents understood that career guidance is not
just about finding jobs, it is about developing future skills and they reflected on how to provide
effective guidance. They wanted to learn the process, including timing, ways to guide, content
and how to communicate deeply with their children in this regard.
Table 5
Validated Assumed Knowledge Causes
Category Assumed Knowledge Influence Validated Not Validated
Conceptual
Knowledge

Parents need to understand that career
guidance is to develop life and career skills
for 21st century global workplace

√
Procedural
Knowledge

Parents need to know how to guide their
children for 21st century skills.
√

Metacognitive
Knowledge

Parents need to know how to reflect on their
own effectiveness in providing guidance.
Partly
validated.

Parents’ Knowledge about the Concept of Career Guidance
Parents need to understand that career guidance is about developing life and career skills
for the 21st century global workplace, not only about getting a job. This was not validated as a
cause. In the survey, the majority of the respondents thought career guidance is about developing
skills and about helping the child to find a job, although they did not believe that parents should
help their children to find a job. These findings are based on the analysis regarding questions 4,
5 and 29 on mean and standard deviation. Please see below Table 6.
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Table 6
Survey Analysis about Conceptual Knowledge

Mean SD
4. Career guidance is about helping my child to get a job. 3.51 1.15
5. Career guidance is about developing skills. 2.75 1.01
29. Parents should help their children to find a job. 4.36 0.98

A six-point Likert Scale was used to assess the degree to which respondents agreed with
the statement, 1 as “Strongly Agree” and 6 as “Strongly Disagree.” The higher mean shows that
the majority of the respondents disagree with the statement and the low mean shows that
respondents have a strong inclination to agree with the statement. The above table shows most
parents agreed that career guidance was about developing skills. Most of them did not agree that
parents should help their children to find a job.
In the interviews, 76% (10 out 13) parents asserted their confirmation that career
guidance is not to help them find a job. One parent said, “It is easy to find a job, but it is difficult
to find a career.” Another person I interviewed pointed out “Career and life are mixed, so it is
important to develop skills and let my child know how to make herself happy.”
Only three parents think helping children to find a job is important, however, they all
believe developing skills are at least of the same importance. One person I interviewed argued
that “Career guidance should be of a wider concept, not just about finding job, but certainly
finding a job is the most important and parents need to help them.”
In the survey, questions 7 and 8, parents were asked about their viewpoints regarding the
importance of key skillsets that they believe their children should acquire; results showed that the
most important two skills were communication skills and problem-solving skills. And when they
were asked to rank the critical skills that the 21st century workplace shall need, the top three they
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chose were innovation capability, communication capability, and problem-solving capability.
The below Figures 3 and 4 present the details about the parents’ ranking order:

Figure 3. Parents' view on the most important skills children need to develop.

Figure 4. Parents' view on importance level - life & career skills for 21st century workplace.
The majority of the parents in the interview, 69% (9 out of 13), mentioned that they
would like to develop their children’s communication skills and critical thinking in better
2
2.28
2.38
2.81
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Decision making skills
Critical thinking skills
Problem solving skills
Communication skills
AVERAGE COMPOSITE SCORE
SKILLS' IMPORTANCE LEVEL
7. Parents' view on the most important skills children need to
develop
1.1
1.21
1.56
1.73
2.41
2.88
3.1
3.44
4.54
5.03
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Initiative & Self-Direction
Independent decision-making skills
Adaptability
Social & Cross-Cultural Skills
Critical thinking
Leadership Responsibility & Accountability
Collaboration
Problem solving
Communication
Creativity and innovation
AVERAGE COMPOSITE SCORE
IMPORTANCE LEVEL
8. Parents' view on Importance Level - Life & Career Skills for
21st century workplace
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preparation for future competition. They then added that it is one of the major reasons why they
chose SUIS Gubei for the high school study of their children.
From this perspective, there is no need to consider the assumed causes of conceptual
knowledge about career guidance in SUIS Gubei Chinese parents’ group.
Parents’ Knowledge about Guiding Process
Parents need to know the process in guiding their children for the 21st century workplace.
This is validated. The response of question 9 regarding the frequency of the communication on
this topic, 45.83% of the parents said they talked with their children about career-related issues
occasionally and 38.54% of them often made the conversation. However, 69% (9 out of 13)
parents in the interview said that they failed to go deep in the conversation, and they were not
confident in guiding the children in the process. One of the interviewees stated, “I did not get
any career guidance from my parents, although certainly I was influenced by them selecting my
subjects in the university. I feel my experience and knowledge is too narrow to guide my
children. And I don’t know how to guide. The only efforts I made was to tell him how I deal
with issues in my daily job.”
In the interview, parents expressed that they failed to talk with their children in setting
goals. One parent expressed her concerns about how to set realistic goals for their children.
Another pointed out that planning, prioritizing and following up the execution were challenges to
him. One person I talked with said, “I don’t know how to help him set realistic goal, how to help
on the self-assessment.” And another interviewee acknowledged, “My son is willing to talk with
me. But I just don’t know how to talk with him on career topics.”
In terms of when to start the career guidance conversation, 92% (12 out of 13) of the
parents agreed that it was not too early to do career guidance in high school. In the interviews,
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38% (5 out of 13) of them expressed that offering career guidance in grade 11 and grade 12 was
too late. Two parents suggested it should be done earlier, better to start before grade 9. Two
parents with a second child said starting from grade 6 or grade 7 was much ideal from their
lessons learned in developing their first child. This was also supported by the survey question 26
as the below Table 7 illustrates.
Table 7
Time to Start Career Guidance

Mean SD
26. Career guidance is too early for high school students. 4.90 0.89

Table 7 gives a high mean, which shows that majority of the parents disagreed that career
guidance is too early for high school students. It is consistent with the findings in the qualitative
interviews.
Failure to develop an interest for their children was a regret, commented by several
parents. One parent said she paid attention to this matter a lot when her daughter was young,
however, they did not talk too much about this when she grew up. One parent said, “I don’t
know how to identify his talent, not to mention about how to guide him to develop an interest.”
Five parents being interviewed admitted that they were highly frustrated in providing
guidance to their children. One parent stated:
“I do not have capability of identifying motivation and offering relevant resources to my
daughter. I don’t know how to go deep in our conversation. Although we talked and co-
developed an action plan towards a short-term goal, I had serious concerns about her execution
capability, and I was not able to follow up the agreed plan. And I feel frustrated, but I hide this
feelings, not disclosing my disappointment to my daughter.”
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 82

One parent said he expected his daughter to achieve economic independence and career
freedom, but he did not know how to help. One parent said he is a good listener but not be able
to ask good questions. “Encouragement” is a common word that eight parents used in the
communication. They used this way as an attitude of support to open the conversation with their
children. Three parents pointed out that they might encourage too much, and sometimes not
properly. They expected to give room for their children to figure out their own path. They would
like to know how to guide and communicate more effectively during the conversation with their
children. One parent read books about coaching and child psychology, trying to get equipped
with skills and theories for support, but she said, “I tried to find solutions, but there are always
new challenges.”
Parents’ Knowledge about How to Reflect
Parents need to know how to reflect on their own effectiveness in providing guidance
about readiness for the 21st century workplace. It is a partly validated cause. The majority of
the parents reflected on their knowledge and ability in providing guidance to their children and
they believed they were not over-protective, instead they were more liberal to give their children
room and freedom to make decisions. However, they still thought academic outcomes were the
most important thing in the high school and they expected more returns from their children.
Table 8 presents parents’ self-reporting status about their metacognitive knowledge.

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 83

Table 8
Survey Analysis on Metacognitive Knowledge
Mean SD
10. I reflect on my knowledge in providing
guidance to my children.
2.10 0.76
11. I reflect on my ability in providing guidance
to my children.
2.08 0.69
12. I feel frustrated when I talk to my child
about career topics.
3.47 1.34
13. I feel confident when I talk to my child
about career topics.
2.83 1.02
14. I think I am a liberal parent who allows my
child to mix with anybody.
2.84 1.00
15. I think student’s academic outcome is the
most important during high school.
3.43 0.99
16. I give my children freedom to make
decisions.
2.27 0.75
17. I expect more from my children than
giving.
3.29 1.12
18. I do not set high expectation on my
children.
3.22 0.92
19. I know my communication styles in guiding
my children’s development.
2.67 0.90
20. I think I am an over-protective parent. 3.72 1.14

The six-point Likert Scale was used to assess the degree to which they agreed with the
statement, 1 as “Strongly Agree” and 6 as “Strongly Disagree”. The low mean shows a strong
inclination that parents agreed with the statement. The above table indicated that the majority of
parents thought they would reflect on their knowledge and ability in providing guidance and they
gave children freedom to make decisions. The mean and standard deviation of question 12 and
13 shows that the majority of the parents felt confident when they talked to their children about
the career topics. Most of the parents agreed that they were liberal and allowed their child to mix
with anybody. Most of them knew their communication styles in guiding their children’s
development and disagreed that they were over-protective. One parent acknowledged:
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 84

“My son is very obedient, and we worked together on many decisions and I behaved like
a role model to him. We have transparent communication and I made efforts to strengthen his
personal interest on subject and career directions. I read many books and we discussed a wide
range of topics including ‘money and happiness’ and ‘life value’ and I encouraged his father to
join the conversation as well.”
The above quote is from a highly confident parent. However, five frustrated parents
during the interview showed high reflectiveness and were anxious to seek feedback. Please see
the Pearson Correlation Analysis to help categorize the two groups of parents.
Pearson Correlation Analysis of Knowledge Influence
The Pearson Correlation Analysis is used to analyze the relationship between two
variables. Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) is a measure of the strength of the association
between the two variables. The p-value under 0.05 helps conclude that a relationship really
exists.
Table 9, 15 and 19 introduced a list of descriptive abbreviation of variables, which were
survey questions, and they were divided by three tables reflecting K, M, O influences.
Table 9 is a list of descriptive abbreviation of survey questions focused on the knowledge
influences.
Table 9
Descriptive Abbreviation – Knowledge Influence
Q Survey Questions Descriptive abbreviation
4 Career guidance is about helping my child to get a job. Get a job
5 Career guidance is about developing skills. Develop skills
10 I reflect on my knowledge in providing guidance to my
children.
Knowledge
11 I reflect on my ability in providing guidance to my
children.
Ability
12 I feel frustrated when I talk to my child about career
topics.
Frustrated parents
13 I feel confident when I talk to my child about career
topics.
Confident parents
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 85

14
I think I am a liberal parent who allows my child to mix
with anybody.
Liberal parents
15 Student’s academic outcome is the most important
during high school.
Academic important
16 I give my children freedom to make decisions. Freedom to make decision
Table 9, continued
17 I expect more from my children than giving. Expect more
18 I do not set high expectation on my children. NO High expectation
19 I know my communication styles in guiding my
children’s development.
Communication style
20 I think I am an over-protective parent. Over-protective

Table 10 presents the correlation analysis from survey questions with relevance to the
knowledge construct. To examine the strength of the association between the two variables,
interesting findings were identified.
Table 10
Pearson Correlation Matrix for Knowledge Influence (N=96)
Q4 Q5 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 Q19 Q20
Q4. Get a
job
1
Q5.
Develop
skills
.38*
*
1
Q10
Knowledg
e
.09
.36*
*
1
Q11
Ability
.04
.35*
*
.82*
*
1
Q12
Frustrated
parents
.13 .24* .25* .32** 1
Q13
Confident
parents
.19 .20 -.04 -.04 -.46** 1
Q14
Liberal
parents
.28** .09 .22* .02 .00 .30** 1
Q15
Academic
important
.33**
.28*
*
.15 .10 .21* .01 .11 1
Q16
Freedom to
make
decision
.00 .16 .13 .15 -.01 .29** .38** .05 1
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 86

Q17
Expect
more
.35**
.28*
*
.02 .00 ,20* -.01 .07
.29*
*
-.02 1
Q18 No
high
expectatio
n
.01 -.01 .05 .01 -.12 .31** .43** -.04 .19 -.11 1
Q19
Communic
ation Style
.09 .24* .09 .01 -.16 .42** .22* -.01 .43** .10 .14 1
Q20 Over-
protective
.33** .10 .19 .20 .35** -.01 .19 .17 -.06 .18 .02 -.08 1
*p<.05 **p < .01
Results of the Pearson correlation indicated that there was a significant positive
association between parents who thought career guidance was about helping their children to get
a job and who thought it was about developing skills (r(96)=.379, p=.000). Those who thought
career guidance was about developing skills, had significant positive relation with those who
reflect on their knowledge (r(96)=.358, p=.000) and ability (r(96)=.350, p=.000) in providing
career guidance to their children, and they felt frustrated when they talked to their child about
career topics (r(96)=.236, p=.02). On the other hand, those who thought career guidance was
about getting a job has significant relevance with their perception of themselves as liberal parents
(r(96)=.279, p=.006) and over-protective parents (r(96)=.325, p=.001). Both think students’
academic outcomes were the most important thing during the students’ high school time and they
expect a return on their investment in their children. Parents who expect a good return had a
significant positive correlation with their perceptions of the importance of academic outcomes in
high schools (r(96)=.288, p=.004).
In survey questions, Q12 and Q13 has a negative correlation (r(96)=-.464, p=0). That
means the frustrated group of parents has a significant negative association with the confident
group of parents. The below analysis will focus on the correlation with other variables between
the two groups to develop more effective solutions.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 87

Analyzing the above tables, the frustrated group of parents in the knowledge factor, they
believed career guidance was about developing skills. This group of parents did reflect on their
knowledge and ability in providing guidance to children. They think the most important thing in
high school is academic achievement and they look forward to a good return on their investment
in their children. Overall, they think they are over-protective parents (r(96)=.353, p=0).
For the confident group of parents, they think they are liberal parents, open and
democratic (r(96)=.296, p=.003). They give their children the freedom to make decisions
(r(96)=.294, p=.004) and they have no higher expectation for their children (r(96)=.314, p=.002).
They believed they knew how to communicate with their children (r(96)=.422, p=0).
Summary
The above analysis validated the assumed causes from a procedural knowledge
perspective. Parents do not know how to guide their children to the 21st century skills and this
will prevent them from effectively providing career-related guidance to their children. Parents
need to know when to start communication, how to communicate and must acquire the relevant
coaching skills. Understanding adult development theories and integrating them into real
practice would also be helpful. Parents’ metacognitive knowledge causes were partly validated.
The validated cause was that if parents are overprotective, they think that the most important
thing in high school is academic achievement. These parents also expected a good return on
their investment in their children, and they were lacking confidence in providing career guidance
to their children. They also do not know their own communication styles. This calls for a
mindset change for the frustrated group of parents and a shared platform to support parents
learning and reflection.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 88

In conclusion, parents at SUIS Gubei need to know how to prepare their children with the
skills needed for the 21st century. The frustrated group of parents need more support, they are
anxious to learn and ready for a change in the communication style during their conversations
with their students.
Motivation Construct
The survey is consistent with the interview, most of the respondents saw the importance
of career guidance and they expressed their willingness to learn how to guide. However, most of
the parents expected the school and the students to take on the main responsibilities and they
were not confident they could manage it effectively. The survey and interview also identified
attribution and self-efficacy causes in the motivation construct. Table 11 presents the details of
the validated assumed causes in the motivation construct.
Table 11
Validated Assumed Motivation Causes
Motivation
Category
Assumed Motivation Influence

Validated Not Validated
Utility Value Parents need to see the importance and
usefulness in providing career guidance to
their children.

√
Attributions Parents should feel that their role, in
addition to that of the school, is critical in
career guidance and ultimately, students’
success in making a relevant and appropriate
career decision by themselves.
√

Self-Efficacy Parents need to believe they are capable of
effectively guiding their children in the
discussion of career-related topics.
√

Parents’ Value for Career Guidance
The idea that parents need to see the importance and usefulness in providing career
guidance to their children was not a validated cause. Table 12 presents the survey analysis.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 89

Table 12
Survey Analysis on Value Motivation
Mean SD
6. Providing appropriate career guidance to students is
critical in high school time.
1.73 0.74
21. Providing career guidance to my children is worthy
even if it takes more time and efforts in learning about how
to do it.
1.80 0.71
22. Learning the content about how to provide career
guidance to my children is valuable for me.
1.72 0.68
23. Learning the content about how to provide career
guidance to my children is useful for me.
1.77 0.68

In the survey, it is highly consistent with the majority of the parents’ thoughts that
providing appropriate career guidance to students was critical in high school and it was worthy
for parents to take more time and efforts to learn how to do it. They thought learning the content
about how to provide career guidance to their children was both valuable and useful to parents.
All of the interviewees admitted the importance of providing career guidance to students
in high school and they expressed their keen attitude to learn the content and techniques.
Parents’ Attributions for Career Guidance Success
It is validated that parents should feel that their role, in addition to that of the school, is
critical in career guidance and ultimately, students’ success in making a relevant and appropriate
career decision by themselves. 54% of the parents (7 out of 13) believed that giving career
guidance to their children was the responsibility of the school and they wished the school or
other institutions could provide help. 62% of the parents (8 out of 13) believed students should
be more independent to think about their career. In the interviews, five of them said, “I give him
freedom and financial support.” Most of them (7 out of 13) did not think that they should do a
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 90

similar occupation like their parents and they did not wish their children to find easy jobs. 77%
of the parents (10 out of 13) hoped that their children could work happily, and the careers could
integrate with their strengths and hobbies. 38% (5 out of 13) parents thought teachers’ words
were more important to their children and they believed their children made decisions heavily
influenced by teachers and classmates.
Table 13 presents the analysis of survey data on the attribution factor of the motivation
construct.
Table 13
Survey Analysis on Attribution Motivation
Mean SD
24. I wish that the school or other institution could provide
career guidance trainings to parents.
1.82 0.75
25. Career guidance is school’s responsibility. 3.16 1.12
27. Students should be responsible for their own career. 2.65 1.13
28. Parents’ major role is to provide financial support to
children, that’s all.
3.65 1.18
30. I wish my children could do some jobs similar to my
occupation so that I could provide guidance and support to
him/her.
4.28 0.99
31. I wish my children to find an easy job; we have made
all the efforts to cultivate an easy life for him/her.
4.25 1.16ff

In the survey, the majority of the parents supported the idea that the school or other
institutions could provide career guidance trainings to parents. They agreed that career guidance
is the school’s responsibility and students should be responsible for their own career. Therefore,
parents’ attributions for career guidance success is a validated cause.
Parents’ Self-Efficacy for Career Support
It is validated that parents need to believe they are capable of effectively guiding their
children in the discussion of career-related topics. The majority of the parents disagreed that
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 91

they were confident and that they could guide their children in the discussion of career-related
topics. In the interviews, three parents were considering or had already hired third party
institutions or agents to help on their children’s university applications. The majority of the
parents thought that their career coverage was too narrow, and they did not know how to guide.
The interest of their children, most of the time, was beyond their knowledge and social network,
according to several parents. One frustrated parent that was interviewed said, “I need support. If
the school cannot help, I am considering hiring an agent to help on the university application
since I am not an expert on this. I think I cannot provide helps. I told my daughter that I can
only support her mentally and financially.”
The below table shows a clear pattern from the survey that most of the parents were not
confident that they could guide their children in career-related aspects.
Table 14
Survey Analysis on Self-efficacy Motivation
Mean SD
32. I am confident that I can guide my children in the
discussion of career-related topics.
3.54 1.06

Pearson Correlation Analysis of Motivation Influence
The Pearson Correlation Analysis is used to analyze the relationship between two
variables. Table 15 is a descriptive abbreviation of the survey questions in the motivation
construct.
Table 15
Descriptive Abbreviation – Motivation Construct
Q Survey Questions Descriptive abbreviation
12 I feel frustrated when I talk to my child about career
topics.
Frustrated parents
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 92

13
I feel confident when I talk to my child about career
topics.
Confident parents
23

L
ea
rn
in
g
th
e
co
nt
en
t
ab
ou
t
ho
w
to
pr
ov
id
e
ca
re
er
gu
id
an
ce
to
m
y
ch
il
dr
en
is
us
ef
ul
fo
r
m
e.
Learning the content about how to provide career guidance
to my children is useful for me.
Useful
24

I
wi
sh
th
at
th
e
sc
ho
ol
or
ot
he
r
in
sti
tu
ti
on
co
ul
d
pr
ov
id
e
ca
re
er
gu
id
an
ce
tr
ai
ni
ng
s
to
pa
re
nt
s.
I wish that the school or other institution could provide
career guidance trainings to parents.
School provide trainings
32 I am confident that I can guide my children in the
discussion of career-related topics.
Parent’s Confidence

Table 16 shows Pearson correlation for above variables.
Table 16
Pearson Correlation Matrix for Motivation Influence (N=96)
Q23
Useful
Q24
School provide
trainings
Q32
Parents’
Confidence
Q12 Frustrated parents .21* .28** -.35**
Q13 Confident parents -.02 -.17 .57**
*p<.05 **p < .01
The p-value under 0.05 suggests a relationship between the two variables. The p-value
under 0.01 concludes that the relationship is significant. The survey reflects that the frustrated
group of parents in the motivation factor had significant positive correlation with their belief that
learning the content about how to provide career guidance to their children was useful for them
(r(96)=.210, p=.04). They welcomed the school’s training programs on this topic (r(96)=.276,
p=.006) . The parents are also not confident that they could guide their children in the discussion
of career topics (r(96)=-.352, p=0).
For the confident group of parents, they expressed their confidence in their ability
(r(96)=.569, p=0).
Summary
At present, most of the parents at SUIS Gubei felt the importance of career guidance and
they expressed their willingness to learn how to guide. The utility value is therefore excluded as
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 93

a validated cause. The motivation construct validated two causes, one about attributions, another
about self-efficacy. Parents should feel that their role, in addition to that of the school, is critical
in career guidance and ultimately, students’ success in making a relevant and appropriate career
decision by themselves. Parents need to believe they are capable of effectively guiding their
children in the discussion of career-related topics. There is a strong need to close the gap in the
validated assumed causes. Without making such efforts, SUIS Gubei will face difficulties in
achieving school’s goal to develop students for the 21st century global workplace.
The frustrated group of parents needs more support since they had strong motivation to
learn the content about how to provide career guidance to their children. Some frustrated parents
asked the way about how to build trust relationship with their children. They also need to take
more responsibilities and be more proactive. Developing programs to enhance the capabilities of
the frustrated group of parents and building feedback channels are effective to help parents gain
confidence in providing career guidance to their children.
Organizational Influence Category
Both survey and interview questions are designed to understand whether SUIS Gubei
provides the right cultural models and settings for a parent-school partnership. The below table
presents the findings of the organizational influence causes.
Table 17
Validated Assumed Organizational Influence Causes
Organizational
Influence
Category
Assumed Organizational Influences

Validated Not Validated
Cultural
Model
Influence 1
The school needs to have collaborative
partnership with parents.

Partly
validated

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 94

Cultural
Model
Influence 2
The school needs to engage parents to
create a culture that parents as being an
important part of students’
development.

√
Cultural
Setting
Influence 1
The school needs to work together with
parents to codevelop workshops and
programs in developing students’ 21st
century skills.

Partly
validated

Cultural
Setting
Influence 2
The school needs to offer workshops at
times that are conducive to parents’
participation.

√

Table 18 shows that most of the survey respondents thought there was a good partnership
between the school and parents and the school co-developed many workshops with parents in the
past. Most of the activities were held at the time that parents could participate. They are not
validated causes. Only cultural model one and cultural setting one are partially validated.
Table 18 presents survey analysis on cultural model and cultural settings.
Table 18
Survey Analysis on Cultural Model and Culture Settings
Mean SD
33. SUIS Gubei has a collaborative partnership with
parents.
2.41 1.34
34. The school makes efforts to help parents see them
being an important part of students’ career development.
2.54 1.27
35. SUIS Gubei work effectively with parents to codevelop
workshops and events.
2.57 1.29
36. The school offers workshops at times that are
conducive to parents’ participation.
2.33 1.23

The mean and standard deviation analysis of the survey results on organizational
influence causes shows that the majority of the parents agreed that SUIS Gubei has a
collaborative partnership with parents. The school has made efforts to help parents see
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 95

themselves as being an important part of students’ career development. SUIS Gubei works
effectively with parents to codevelop workshops and events and the school offers workshops at
times that are conducive to the parents’ participation.
However, in the qualitative interviews, complaints about the guidance that the school
provided about university application support and career guidance were heard often, 62% (8 out
of 13) of the parents thought that the school should pay more attention to career guidance and
university application support. These complaints were mainly from parents whose children are
in grade 11 and grade 12. Frustrated parents with children in grade 11 and grade 12 expressed
their wishes that the school could provide more supports in career and university guidance and
two of them mentioned, “I am willing to share my experience, good part or lesson learned, if the
school establish a platform.” Parents provided a great deal of suggestions to the school to
develop more effective career guidance programs to the students and parents expressed their
willingness to participate. Some of these suggestions will be helpful as recommendations in
Chapter 5.
A Culture of Collaboration between the School and Parents
The school needs to have a collaborative partnership with the parents. This is partly
validated. In the interviews, the frustrated group of parents thought that some of the school
activities were not practical. “The communication between parents and school should be
improved,” five parents said. There should be more communication channels between the school
and the parents, while the current communication mainly relied on short message and emails,
these were only one-way communication.
Three parents who sought help from agents claimed that they failed to get support from
the school, and they tried external agents recommended by parents whose children in senior
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 96

grades and their personal networks. One parent described a story that an international teacher
shared his career experience with the students, and he viewed it as a great example, however, it
was not promoted to the whole school. The school encouraged the Parent Support Group to
collect all the suggestions and complaints and then talked to the school administration, several
parents thought the process was long and with little feedback.
The School’s Efforts to Promote the Importance of the Parents’ Role
The idea that the school needs to engage parents to create a culture that parents seeing
them being an important part of students’ development is not validated. Although most of the
parents said that the school had been and was making efforts to let parents know their important
role in the career development of their children, 38% of the parents (5 out of 13) in the interview
session said that the school needed to let parents have such an awareness earlier so that they
could learn and manage the whole process at their students’ earlier age. This is consistent with
the time suggestion on the knowledge construct that many parents thought the school should
raise and emphasize this issue as early as grade 6 and grade 7.
Co-develop Workshops and Programs
It is partially validated that the school needs to work together with parents to codevelop
workshops and programs in developing students’ 21st century skills. In the interview, several
parents said that the school had experience working together with them to codevelop some
workshops or programs such as the Christmas bazaar and club activities. One interviewee said:
“I think the school is more collaborative with and supportive to parents in primary school time.
After grade 7 I feel the communication channel is not smooth and the school asked us not to
discuss about teacher in the WeChat group.” Additionally, one frustrated parent made the
following statements:
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 97

“For the student club activities, the teacher in charge are not well experienced and the
school should find more resources to help students gain more exposure to other activities. In
terms of the career guidance part, the school does not have experienced teacher and they did not
invite experts for a workshop. There is only a university guidance office and there is teachers’
turnover which cannot make sure the consistency. Teachers are not motivated to do this.”
Another parent agreed almost word-for-word, she added:
“The communication and collaboration between parents and the school is not well
enough. I am disappointed that the communication channel is simple, only by short message and
email. The school is not considering other new channels. SUIS Gubei should develop new
initiatives to strengthen parent-school cooperation. The university guidance just starts, and lots of
areas need to improve.”
For this subject, the school needs to listen to the parents more regarding suggestions and
cooperation and the school should be able to follow the process to work more proactively with
parents.
The School Offers Workshop at Right Time
The school needs to offer workshops at times that are conducive to parents’ participation.
This is not validated as described above. Both the survey analysis on cultural model and cultural
settings illustrated by Table 18 and answers in the qualitative interview indicated that there were
no complaints regarding the time scheduled for parents’ activities.
Pearson Correlation Analysis of Organizational Influence
Table 19 is a descriptive abbreviation of survey questions in the organizational influence
construct.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 98

Table 19
Descriptive Abbreviation – Organizational Influence Construct
Q Survey Questions Descriptive abbreviation
12 I feel frustrated when I talk to my child about career topics. Frustrated parents
13 I feel confident when I talk to my child about career topics. Confident parents
33 SUIS Gubei has a collaborative partnership with parents. Collaborative partnership
34
The school makes efforts to help parents see them being an
important part of students’ career development.
School make efforts
35
SUIS Gubei work effectively with parents to codevelop
workshops and events.
Codevelop workshops
36
The school offers workshops at times that are conducive to
parents’ participation.
Good time setup

Table 20 presents Pearson analysis on organizational influence causes with frustrated and
confident group of parents.
Table 20
Pearson Correlation Matrix for Motivation Influence (N=96)
Q33
Collaborative
partnership
Q34
School make
efforts
Q35
Codevelop
workshops
Q36
Good time setup
Q12 Frustrated parents .07 .11 .16 .31**
Q13 Confident parents .26* .18 .04 -.04
*p<.05 **p < .01
In the Pearson Correlation analysis shown in table 20, there is a significant positive
correlation between the frustrated parents and when SUIS Gubei offers workshops at times that
are conducive to parents’ participation (r(96)=.306, p=.002). There is a positive correlation
between confident parents and collaborative partnership (r(96)=.255, p=.012). That is why mixed
comments on collaborative partnerships with the parents were heard in the interviews, and
complaints about effective collaboration were more from parents whose students are at senior
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 99

grade levels such as grade 10 and grade 11. SUIS Gubei has made continuous improvements but
they still need to improve their collaboration with parents.
Summary
In summary, the frustrated group of parents expected the school to enhance the
communication channels and provide more practical guidance to parents in the career-related and
university application processes. The confident group of parents thought that the school already
made efforts to help them. The frustrated group of parents paid great attention to the workshops.
Given the fact that only 9% of the survey respondents are fathers, qualitative interviews
on the fathers were conducted by referrals through the Parent Support Group. Altogether four
fathers were interviewed. They said the reason why they did not participate in school activities
often are that they felt embarrassed on the site given that the majority of the participants are
generally mothers. They suggested including more fathers in the PSG and promoting fathers’
role in the career guidance process. Fathers could be invited by PSG to share their work
experience and they could share different occupations to all the parents including the students,
according to these male interviewees.
Summary of Data Analysis
The research indicated that there is a strong need to provide career-related parent
guidance at SUIS Gubei. The research confirmed several of the knowledge, motivation, and
organizational influences identified in the literature review. The majority of the Chinese parents
did not receive any guidance during their adolescence; therefore, they do not know how to
provide guidance and how to build a trust relationship with their young adults. Most parents
have little knowledge about developing skills, goal-setting, and strength-finding. They either
over-protective or choose not to intervene too much. Since many of them do not believe they
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 100

have the capability of providing career guidance, they chose not to engage in this matter and
meanwhile they have high expectations of the school and wish that the school could provide
relevant support.
The below table is a summary of the validated causes:
Table 21
Validated Causes Summary
Category Assumed Influence Validated Not Validated
Procedural
Knowledge

Parents need to know how to guide their
children for 21st century skills.
√

Metacognitive
Knowledge

Parents need to know how to reflect on
their own effectiveness in providing
guidance.
Partly validated.
Attributions Parents should feel that their role, in
addition to that of the school, is critical
in career guidance and ultimately,
students’ success in making a relevant
and appropriate career decision by
themselves.
√

Self-Efficacy Parents need to believe they are capable
of effectively guiding their children in
the discussion of career-related topics.
√

Cultural Model
Influence 1
The school needs to have collaborative
partnership with parents.

Partly validated
Cultural
Setting
Influence 1
The school needs to work together with
parents to codevelop workshops and
programs in developing students’ 21st
century skills.

Partly validated

For the group of parents that were full of confidence, they think they are liberal, and they
do not interfere with who the child is with. They give their children freedom to make decisions
and they do not have high expectations for their children. They believe they know how to
communicate with their young adolescents during their development. The parents are confident
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 101

that they could provide career-related guidance and they think the school collaborates with the
parents well. This group does not believe anything needs to change.
For the frustrated parent group, they understand that career counseling is to help children
develop skills. They reflect on whether they have the knowledge needed for accurate career
counseling for their children and they think they do not have the capability of conducting career
counseling. They think the most important thing in high school is academic achievement and
they see themselves as overprotective. The frustrated parents agree that the theory and skills
needed to provide career guidance for their children is useful. They hope that schools or other
institutions can provide the parents with training on how to do career counseling with their
children. They have no confidence that they could provide career guidance to their children.
These parents are willing to attend workshops and they replied that those workshops are usually
arranged at a time they can attend. This group of parents seeks help and they suggest the school
designing programs on their requests. When the school designs workshops, the needs from the
frustrated group of parents should be collected in a more detailed way.

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 102

CHAPTER FIVE: SOLUTIONS, IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION
The purpose of this chapter is to present evidence-based recommendations for addressing
the validated causes from knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences discussed in
Chapter four. It can be seen that these influences prevent the parents from effectively providing
career-related guidance to their children.
According to the analysis in Chapter four, it is confirmed that there is a strong need to
provide career-related parent guidance at SUIS Gubei. The research validated several of the
knowledge, motivation, and organizational influence causes identified in the literature review.
The majority of the Chinse parents did not receive any guidance during their adolescence;
therefore they do not know how to provide guidance and how to build a trust relationship with
their young adults. Most parents have little knowledge about developing decision making skills,
goal-setting, and strength-finding. They are either over-protective or choose not to intervene.
Since many of them do not believe they have the capability of providing career guidance, they
chose not to engage in this matter, neither communicate much; however, they have high
expectations on the school and wish that the school could provide relevant support.
Policy Solutions
In order to make sure by the 2022 school year, Chinese parents will be able to provide
career-related support to their children in high school to get them prepared for the 21st century
global workplace, SUIS Gubei should create a family school partnership, develop a career-
related parent support platform, and provide parents’ career guidance training workshops.
The below table shows validated causes from Chapter four with proposed solutions:

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 103

Table 22
Validated Causes & Proposed Solutions
Assumed Causes Validated Proposed Solutions
Procedural
Knowledge

Parents need to know how to
guide their children for 21st
century skills.
√
Providing training workshops
for parents about how to set a
goal, how to develop decision
making skills, how to follow-
up action plans.

Providing workshops about
communication skills and
coaching skills such as how to
ask questions and how to give
constructive feedback.

Providing an online learning
platform for parents about
career guidance theories and
procedures.

Providing opportunities for
parents to practice how to
guide.
Metacognitive
Knowledge

Parents need to know how to
reflect on their own
effectiveness in providing
guidance.
Partly
validated.
Provide parents a platform to
share and communicate their
experience, seek feedback so
that they could reflect on the
effectiveness in providing
guidance.

Providing one-on-one coaching
to enhance parents’ reflection
capabilities.

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 104

Table 22, continued
Assumed Causes Validated Proposed Solutions
Attributions Parents should feel that their
role, in addition to that of the
school, is critical in career
guidance and ultimately,
students’ success in making a
relevant and appropriate
career decision by
themselves.
√
Before the training workshops,
launch training introductory
session to present rationales
about the importance of
parents’ role in students’ career
and life.

Develop training materials and
activities relevant and useful to
parents, connected to their
interests and based on real-
world tasks.

Build a supportive and caring
personal relationship in the
parents’ community.
Self-Efficacy Parents need to believe they
are capable of effectively
guiding their children in the
discussion of career-related
topics.
√
Provide videos to observe
effective career guidance
conversations.

Set close, concrete and
challenging goals that allow
parents to experience success
at the tasks.

Provide feedbacks to enhance
parents’ confidence.

Design learner-friendly
training materials that are clear,
coherent and complete.

Use task, reward, and
evaluation structure that
promote mastery, learning,
effort, progress and self-
improvement standards.

Adjust time on task
requirements for individuals
having trouble completing
work and allow individuals to
plan work schedules and
timelines for progress.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 105

Table 22, continued
Assumed Causes Validated Proposed Solutions
Cultural Model
Influence 1
The school needs to have
collaborative partnership with
parents.

Partly
validated
Have parents involved in the
curriculum and activities design.

Promote positive collaborative
environments to support
continuous improvement.

Cultural
Setting
Influence 1
The school needs to work
together with parents to
codevelop workshops and
programs in developing
students’ 21st century skills.

Partly
validated
Create a community of learners
where everyone supports
everyone else’ attempt to learn.

Pay attention to improve the
family school partnership in
multiple ways.

Provide feedback scheme to
collect parents and students’
suggestions.

The twenty proposed solutions have been grouped into three categories: training
workshops, a career-guidance parents’ support platform and a family school partnership. These
will be further integrated into one comprehensive program, with subsequent implementation
plans and evaluation methods. The below table lists a summary of solution categories.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 106

Table 23
Summary of Solution Categories
Proposed Solutions Solution Categories
1. Providing training workshops for parents about how to set
a goal, how to develop decision making skills, how to
follow-up action plans.

2. Providing workshops about communication skills and
coaching skills such as how to ask questions and how to
give constructive feedback.

3. Providing an online learning platform for parents about
career guidance theories and procedures.

4. Providing opportunities for parents to practice how to
guide.
Training workshops

Training workshops

Parents’ support platform

Parents’ support platform

5. Provide parents a platform to share and communicate their
experience, seek feedback so that they could reflect on the
effectiveness in providing guidance.

6. Providing one-on-one coaching to enhance parents’
reflection capabilities.

Parents’ support platform

Parents’ support platform

7. Before the training workshops, launch training introductory
session to present rationales about the importance of
parents’ role in students’ career and life.

8. Develop training materials and activities relevant and
useful to parents, connected to their interests and based on
real-world tasks.

9. Build a supportive and caring personal relationship in the
parents’ community.
Training workshops

Training workshops

Parents’ support platform

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 107

Table 23, continued
Proposed Solutions Solution Categories
10. Provide videos to observe effective career guidance
conversations.

11. Set close, concrete and challenging goals that allow parents
to experience success at the tasks.

12. Provide feedbacks to enhance parents’ confidence.

13. Design learner-friendly training materials that are clear,
coherent and complete.

14. Use task, reward, and evaluation structure that promote
mastery, learning, effort, progress and self-improvement
standards.

15. Adjust time on task requirements for individuals having
trouble completing work and allow individuals to plan
work schedules and timelines for progress.

Training workshops

Training workshops

Training workshops

Training workshops

Training workshops

Training workshops
16. Have parents involved in the curriculum and activities
design.

17. Promote positive collaborative environments to support
continuous improvement.

Family school partnership

Family school partnership
18. Create a community of learners where everyone supports
everyone else’ attempt to learn.

19. Pay attention to improve the family school partnership in
multiple ways.

20. Provide feedback scheme to collect parents and students’
suggestions.
Parents’ support platform

Family school partnership

Family school partnership

In summary, the twenty proposed solutions are categorized into three main solutions:
• Solution One: Provide training workshops to parents about career-related support.
• Solution Two: Establish online and offline career-related parent support platform.
• Solution Three: Enhance the family school partnership.

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 108

Solution One: Providing Training Workshops to Parents about Career-related Support
Before the training workshop, training introductory sessions are needed to launch for
several times with all the parents to present rationales about the importance of the parents’ role in
their students’ career and life. Rationales that include a discussion of the importance and utility
value of the work or learning can help learners develop positive values (Eccles, 2006; Pintrich,
2003).
During the training materials development, the materials and activities should be relevant
and useful to the learners, connected to their interests, and based on real-world tasks (Pintrich,
2003). According to the survey and interview data, training materials should include how to set
a goal, how to develop decision making skills such as how-to follow-up action plans. Topics
about communication skills and coaching skills such as how to ask questions and how to give
constructive feedback should be learned and practiced. In order to increase interest, the learning
materials should incorporate real-life, original source materials that are learner-friendly, clear,
coherent and complete (Shraw & Lehman, 2009). According to Yough and Anderman (2006),
the learning tasks should be designed in a novel, varied, diverse, interesting and reasonable
challenging way to promote mastery orientation. Mayer (2011) recommends integrating
auditory and visual information to maximize working memory capacity. Videos of best practice
guidance are to be taken, being integrated into the training materials for parents to watch on the
shared platform; and in class practice session, videos could be recorded for observation and
feedback discussion.
To develop mastery, individuals must acquire component skills, practice integrating
them, and know when to apply what they have learned (Schraw & McCrudden, 2006). To
increase efficacy, Prajares (2006) suggested setting close, concrete and challenging goals that
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 109

allow the learners to experience success at the tasks. Since parents are at different stages of
learning, coaching, and guidance, the learning material and tasks should be designed for different
levels. Yough & Anderman (2006) recommended adjusting time on task requirements for
individuals having trouble completing work and allowing individuals to plan work schedules and
timelines for progress. This is to help promote mastery goal orientation.
In the delivery of the training workshops, timely evaluation and providing feedback are
critical to help improve parents’ performance in providing career guidance to their children.
Dembo and Eaton (2000) and Denler et al., (2006) recommend encouraging the use of self-
regulatory strategies, including goal setting and self-evaluation to enhance learning performance.
Shute (2008) suggests providing private, specific, and timely feedback and Tuckman (2009)
recommends immediate feedback and reinforcement for behavioral changes.
Solution Two: Establish Online and Offline Career-related Parent Support Platform
The online and offline learning and sharing platform is essential for parents to improve
their metacognitive knowledge mastery. Parents are able to share and communicate their
experience, seek feedback in the online and offline platform so that they can reflect on their
effectiveness in providing guidance to students. Baker (2006) suggests creating opportunities for
learners to engage in guided self-monitoring and self-assessment before, during, and after
learning. The online learning platform could be designed to include the steps and stages with
progress and monitoring. To help foster productive attribution, Pintrich (2003) recommends
building a supportive and caring personal relationship within the community of learners. The
offline platform is to provide opportunities for parents to practice how to guide. The third-party
vendor could provide one-on-one coaching to enhance parents’ reflection capabilities. The
personal learning journey is also a valuable asset that parents could share with students about
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 110

how to set goals, how to practice ensuring mastery and how to reflect and gain support to
increase self-efficacy.
Solution Three: Enhance Family School Partnership
Clark & Estes (2008) advocate for positive emotional environments that support
motivation. In order to develop an effective partnership between the school and the parents
towards a shared goal to develop students for the future global workplace, SUIS Gubei needs to
get parents involved in the design of the curriculum and activities. Positive communication
disciplines are to be reinforced in all the communication channels between the school and the
family. Most importantly, feedback schemes should be developed on regular basis to collect
parents and students’ suggestions towards continuous improvement.
Implementation Plans
The above proposed solutions are integrated and delivered through a three-year
continuous improvement program with an objective to improve parents’ knowledge, skills and
commitment to career guidance so that they are more effective in providing support together with
the school to support the students’ whole person development for the future global workplace.
The organization to assist with the implementation of this program will be a third-party coaching
organization in Shanghai. The evaluation of the vendor will be completed in September 2019.
The table below provides the implementation plan summary, including action steps,
resources requirements, timelines and measurements.

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Table 24
Implementation Plan Summary Table
Proposed
Solutions
Action Steps Building Capacity
& Resource
Requirements
Timeline Indicators, Measures &
Constraints
Solution One:
Provide training
workshops to
parents about
career guidance.

Career office and PSG
work together to build
a project team.

Set up project team
and working
mechanism.

Select third party
vendor to help develop
and implement
training workshops.

Launch training
introductory sessions.

Launch training
workshops

Get principal
support and check
if there is a
budget to launch
this program.

An administrator
should be
designated from
career office to
get involved in
the curriculum
and activity
design.

A committed
third-party
coaching
organization
needs to be
selected.

September
2019

September
2019

October 2019

December
2019
Number of parents attend
the training workshop

Number of parents
complete the training
workshop

Percentage of parents
participate in the
workshops

Survey on CRPSS (Career-
Related Parent Support
Scale) Chinese version
done by students

Parents’ survey before and
after the workshops

Self-report changes of
behaviors in parents’
communication with
students (survey)

Challenges on the quality
of third-party vendor

Solution Two:
Establish online
and offline
career-guidance
parents’ support
platform.

Promote the parent
career guidance
community in wechat
platform and build a
supportive learning
environment.

Let parents share what
kind of the work they
do, build a weekly
sharing platform,
which could be done
by video and then
posted online.

The Parent
Support Group
need to identify
representatives
from each grade
to help promote
and manage the
wechat platform.

Call for voluntary
parent in support
of daily
management of
the learning group
and community.

December
2019

January 2020

Number of parents in
wechat platform.

Percentage of active
participants in online
platform.

Number of parents joining
offline activities.

Number of clicks on the
online platform.

Survey on parents about the
learning platform
effectiveness.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 112

Table 24, continued
Proposed
Solutions
Action Steps Building Capacity
& Resource
Requirements
Timeline Indicators, Measures &
Constraints
Monthly offline
activities could be
launched, inviting
keynote speakers.

Parents could be
organized by grade
and big or small
learning group.

Parents build a wechat
sharing platform about
their success, their
puzzles and give each
other encouragement
and constructive
feedback.

In School online
platform promote the
video.

Build a Q&A column
in online platform.

Existing students
could be recruited
to join as their
ECA assignments
to do video and
online posting
work.

Keynote speaker
recruitment.

Call for
experience
sharing.

Ask the third-
party coaching
organization to
identify someone
for the
management of
Q&A column.

January 2020

Challenges on technical
support, external vendor
support and ethical
assessment
Solution Three:
Enhance family
school
partnership.
The career office
actively engages
parents in curriculum
design.

Collect feedback from
parents.

Ask suggestions from
students.

Create more
communication
channels between
family and school.
.

Principal support

Career office
support

Teachers’ support

Students
willingness to
provide
suggestions

Parents
proactively
engage in school
activities with a
positive mindset
Starting
September
2019
Number of parents
attending school activities

Number of parents
communicate with school
via different channels.

Parents’ satisfaction survey

Quality suggestions from
students.

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 113

Action steps for the implementation of the policy solutions need to be carefully planned
and step-by-step executed. During the execution process, collecting feedbacks and revisiting the
action steps are essential to make sure the successful implementation of the policy solutions.
Solution One
The first solution proposed is to provide training workshops to parents about career
guidance.
Key implementation action steps. The first step for this solution is to build a project
team connecting the resources in SUIS Gubei and the Parent Support Group (PSG). A
collaborative working group should be organized with key members from the career office and
PSG. In addition, the working mechanism should be discussed and confirmed before the launch
of training. A working mechanism is considered mature after four weeks of collaboration. Most
importantly, a third-party vendor is to be selected based on their quality to provide coaching,
capability to co-design training materials tailor-made for Chinese parents and their commitment
to the project for three years. After that, training introductory sessions will launch before the
recruitment of the participants for the training workshops. This is to make sure that parents see
the value of career guidance for their children. The training workshops will be launched after the
training materials are developed by the project team.
Resources requirements; building capacity to implement. In order to launch the
above-mentioned action steps, the team needs to receive principal approval and check if there are
any budget and resources that the group could leverage. An administrator in the career office is
expected to be designated for this project. An external vendor or expert could be consulted and
evaluated by the project team in the planning process. The quality of the vendor is critical and a
commitment for a three-year period of participation with the project should be guaranteed.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 114

Timeline for implementation. The project team should be set up by September 2019 and
the working mechanism should be adjusted to set up in the first month. The training introductory
sessions are planned to launch in October 2019 and a plan for curriculum design and activities is
expected to be drafted in the same month. The training materials are prepared and tested in small
groups initially. The official launch of training workshops is scheduled in December 2019.
Key indicators or measures of successful policy implementation; also note any
possible constraints or challenges. The number of parents that attend the training workshops
and the number of parents that complete the entire trainings are a key indicator of first success.
A survey on CRPSS (Career-Related Parent Support Scale) Chinese version is done by students
before and after the workshops to monitor the improvement from the students’ perspective.
Parents’ survey before and after the workshops are to be conducted. Other evaluations include
self-reported changes of behaviors in parents’ communication with students. In terms of
challenges, the quality and commitment of the third-party vendor is one of the biggest
challenges. Possible constraints include the capabilities of the career office faculty and the
financial support from the school.
Solution Two
The second solution proposed is to establish online and offline career related parents’
support platform. A learning and sharing community are important to make sure of the full
effectiveness of the first solution.
Key implementation action steps. First of all, a WeChat platform should be established
to promote a parent career guidance community and a supportive learning environment should be
cultivated by the project leader. Secondly, check parents’ occupations and ask parents to share
what kind of the work they do. Video could be taken and uploaded online so that students could
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 115

view them when they have time. Thirdly, a monthly offline workshop could be launched by
inviting keynote speakers. In the WeChat platform, parents could be organized by grade or, by
their topics of interest. It does not matter if the group are small or large, as long as the learning
groups report back their learnings and reflections. Success stories could be written or recorded.
Problems and frustrations could be expressed to external experts for answers. In addition, the
school’s online platform could promote the successful stories, interviews, and videos about the
workshops. The platform needs to ensure parents give each other encouragement and
constructive feedback. Finally, a Q&A column should be built in the online platform to recruit a
voluntary person to manage the column.
Resources requirements; building capacity to implement. In order to launch the
above-mentioned action steps, volunteers for maintaining the administration of WeChat groups
are to be invited. Technically speaking, it is easy to organize in a WeChat platform for the
communication. SUIS Gubei should have IT support when parents need it, and the project team
will call for parents to volunteer to find external resources, keynote speakers, communication
with students and external vendors. Video and interviews could be organized by existing SUIS
Gubei students as their ECA assignments. Offline workshop organization could be organized by
student groups as well. Resources from the third-party vendor could be leveraged to manage or
support the Q&A column.
Timeline for implementation. The platform setup should start in October 2019 and the
offline activities could start in January 2020. It is a continuously improved model with at least
three-year construction, aiming to turn into normal operation by the end of 2020.
Key indicators or measures of successful policy implementation; also note any
possible constraints or challenges. The number of parents in the WeChat platform, the
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 116

percentage of active participants in the online platform, the number of parents joining the offline
activities, and the number of clicks on the online platform are the key indicators of success.
Surveying the parents about the learning platform effectiveness could be done. Challenges
include technical support of the WeChat platform and the school’s online system. The support
from teachers, external vendors and parents are certainly important. And the communication
channels between the school and the parents should be wide and effective. During the process,
we need to make sure of fairness and open communication in the platform to avoid any ethical
issues.
Solution Three
The third solution is to enhance the family school partnership. This is the foundation of
the success of the first two solutions.
Key implementation action steps. For this solution the key action is to make sure that
the project team engages parents in the curriculum design. The project team needs to collect
feedback from parents about the training materials, ask suggestions from the students and create
multiple communication channels between the school and families.
Resources requirements; building capacity to implement. The support from the
principal, career office, and teachers are critical. They need to have the awareness of the
importance of the parents’ role in student development and take a proactive approach to
effectively engage parents. Students’ willingness to provide suggestions are also important.
Parents’ attitude to engage in school activities is good according to the survey and interviews
done in Chapter four, however, they need to hold a positive mindset during the engagement with
the school.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 117

Timeline for implementation. This should start in September 2019 for a consecutive
three-year effort for improvement.
Key indicators or measures of successful policy implementation; also note any
possible constraints or challenges. The success will be shown by the number of parents
attending school activities and the number of parents communicating with the school via
different channels. The measurement could be parents’ satisfaction survey regarding to the
family and school partnership. In addition, the quality suggestions from students on this topic
could be viewed as another indicator of the success, as well as parents’ feedbacks. Challenges
are to maintain transparent communication through all of the programs.
Evaluation of Policies
Evaluation is an effective way to get valid and reliable information regarding to the state
of the system being changed, the progress of interventions and the bottom-line impact on the
overall goals (Clark & Estes, 2008). Evaluation can help policy makers to develop mid-course
corrections, to identify new resources, to increase the impact and to reconfirm the time and
resources investment. In this section, a detailed evaluation plan is provided to assist the project
team with monitoring the impact of the integrated program and the effectiveness of the proposed
solutions.
To assess the impact of the integrated program, a baseline, mid-term and final project
evaluation will be conducted using the CRPSS (Career-Related Parent Support Scale) survey.
The stakeholder who benefit from this program as a measurement of impact are the high school
students of SUIS Gubei. Students will take the survey before the launch of the integrated
program, on September 2019. This is the baseline assessment and results. Students whose
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 118

parents have participated in this integrated program will take the survey around March 2021 to
get a mid-term result. The end-line assessment will be done in September 2022.
Besides formative and summative evaluations, ongoing monitoring of the implementation
together with improvement plans will also be conducted. There are four levels of evaluation
according to Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick’s (2006) work on the evaluation of training programs.
These four levels will be used to evaluate the proposed integrated solutions with a three-year
continuous improvement program organized by SUIS Gubei. The first level to be evaluated is
the level of engagement and satisfaction with the intervention. In Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick
(2006) model, it is called reaction. The second level is called learning, and it is the evaluation of
the knowledge and learning of the parents’ commitment and confidence. The third level is
termed behavior or transfer. This is the evaluation of the behavior changes and the parents’
application of learning. The last level is the evaluation of impact. These four levels are built on
one another and take progressively longer to implement (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2006). The
below table details how each of these levels will be evaluated during the implementation of the
three solutions.
Table 25
Evaluation of Proposed Solutions
Intervention
proposed
How satisfaction,
engagement with
intervention will be
assessed
(Level 1)
How you will
assess learning,
commitment,
confidence
(Level 2)
How you will assess
behavior change,
application of
learning
(Level 3)
How you will assess
impact
(Level 4)

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 119

Table 25, continued
1.Provide
training
workshops to
parents about
career
guidance.

• Use reaction
sheets at the end
of each training
session to get
parents’
satisfaction level
and suggestions
• Monitor
attendance and
completion rates
• Observe the level
of discussion in
the training – are
they all active
during small
group activities?
• Pre/post test on
content
• Observe
parents’
behaviors to
assess their
level of
involvement in
the workshops
(Choice,
persistence,
mental efforts)
• Test the level of
proficiency in
workshop
practicing peer
coaching
• Final program
survey
assessing
confidence and
commitment to
the change
• Survey of
participants after
the workshop
about behavior
changes
• Follow up phone
interviews (brief)
with select
participants about
examples of
change (if any)
and to what they
attribute any
improvement
• Monitor the
percentage of
parents’
continuous efforts
in learning and
practicing career
guidance after the
workshops, check
the active
participants in
online and offline
activities
• Talk to students
about their new
experience after
parents received
trainings, follow
the case that
students who are
benefited from
change of parents’
behaviors
Intervention
proposed
How satisfaction,
engagement with
intervention will be
assessed
(Level 1)
How you will
assess learning,
commitment,
confidence
(Level 2)
How you will assess
behavior change,
application of
learning
(Level 3)
How you will assess
impact
(Level 4)
2. Establish
online and
offline career-
guidance
parents’
support
platform.

• Monitor number
of parents in the
platform,
percentage of
active
participation,
number of
parents joining
offline activities,
number of clicks
on the school
online platform.
• Survey on
parents’
satisfaction about
the platform
effectiveness on
quarterly basis
• Survey of
participants and
school
administrators
about
commitment
and confidence
in the
effectiveness of
online and
offline
platform.
• Survey of
participants and
school
administrators
three month after
the platform
operation
• Follow up phone
interviews with
selected parents
and school
administrators
about examples of
changes and to
what they attribute
any improvement
• Survey on students
about their
feelings regard to
this platform
• Survey on parents
about their
feedback on this
platform
• Phone interview
with selected
students about
examples of good
career guidance
they benefited
from the parents
and the platform.

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 120

Table 25, continued
3. Enhance
family school
partnership.
• Monitor number
of parents
attending school
activities,
• Monitor number
of parents
communicating
with school in
each channel.
• Survey about
parents’
satisfaction level
about the
partnership on
yearly basis

• Survey about
parents’
confidence
level of
partnering with
the school and
giving
constructive
feedback to the
school.
• Survey about
parents and school
administrators six
months after
launching the
program
• Phone interview
selected parents
and school
administrators
about example of
improvements
• Survey about
satisfaction level
of the partnership
from students,
parents, and school
faculty
• Phone interview
students about
what they benefit
from family school
partnership.
• Collect quality
suggestion from
students.

Level 1 Reaction
Evaluation on this level measures how participants in the program react to it, which is a
measure of customer satisfaction (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2006). A positive reaction is the
foundation of other levels of implementation.
Solution 1. The reaction level will be measured during the workshops through a post-
training survey. Reaction sheets, usually called “smile” sheets will be used at the end of each
training session to get parents’ satisfaction level with suggestions collected at the end of the
sheet. The results will be analyzed, the comments received from parents will be considered
carefully and programs will be modified accordingly. In addition, the attendance and completion
rates will be monitored and at the level of discussion the training sessions will be observed,
especially during small group activities in the training workshops.
Solution 2. During the platform construction and maturing stages, the number of parents
registered in the platform, the percentage of active participants, and the number of clicks on the
school online platform will be closely monitored. The number of parents joining offline
activities will be traced as well, and a survey on the parents’ satisfaction level about the platform
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 121

effectiveness on a quarterly basis will be conducted through the WeChat platform. Feedback and
suggestions from parents will be carefully evaluated to improve the platform content and
interactive channels.
Solution 3. In terms of the proposed family school partnership enhancement, the number
of parents attending school activities and the number of parents communicating with the school
in each channel are monitored. Meanwhile, a survey about parents’ satisfaction level regarding
the family school partnership will be conducted each year to identify the areas for improvement.
Level 2 Learning
Level 2 learning measures the knowledge and skills participants in the program learned
and improved and the attitude they changed (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2006).
Solution 1. Prior to the training workshops, a test on the content and after the training
workshop a test on the content will be done to measure the learning and knowledge. During the
training workshops, parents’ level of involvement will be observed to check if they actively
choose to engage in the session, if they are persistent to practice in the training and if they use
their mental efforts to learn and ask questions. A recording is going to be taken in the class
session for future coaching to reflect the level of proficiency. The final program survey will
assess parents’ attitude, such as confidence level of the knowledge and skills they learned, and
their commitment to the after-class practice times.
Solution 2. During the platform construction and maturing stages, surveys of the parents
and the school administrators about their attitude towards the online and offline platforms will be
conducted and their confidence level about the effectiveness of the platform as well. It will be
done every six months.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 122

Solution 3. In terms of the family school partnership enhancement, a survey about
parents’ confidence level of partnering with the school and giving constructive feedback to the
school will be done every year.
Level 3 Behavior
The third level of evaluation is built on the previous levels and assesses the behaviors of
the participants and whether their behaviors have changed after the intervention solution is
adopted (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2007). This is more time-consuming and difficult to
evaluate. Both interviews and survey questionnaires are used in the evaluation.
Solution 1. After the workshops, a survey of parents about behavior changes is
conducted immediately and three months after the training, follow up phone conversations with
selected parents are made to collect examples of change and to what parents attribute any
improvement. These improvement stories could be shared in the online and offline platform if
parents agree.
Solution 2. Three months after the normal operation of the online and offline platform, a
survey to the parents and the school administrators is conducted about behavior changes. Follow
up phone interviews with selected parents and school administrators about real stories of how
they benefited from the platform and their application of what they learned in the real world.
The assessment results will be carefully analyzed to modify the construction of the platform.
After that, every six months a survey and interviews are conducted to monitor the progress.
Solution 3. Six months after the efforts of this intervention, surveys about parents and
school administrators about their behavior changes in support of a partnership is conducted.
Follow up phone interviews with selected parents and school administrators about real stories
that they contribute to a better partnership will be documented.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 123

Level 4 Impact
At the end of each solution, the organization will assess the impact of the intervention.
This level measures the degree to which targeted outcomes occurred as a result of the training
workshops and reinforcement activities. On the one hand, the impact is on the parents, the
change of their behaviors during career talks with their students, the change of their mindset and
attitude, and the change of their partnership with the school. On the other hand, since the
objective is to help students gain the correct career skills for the future global workplace,
evaluation on the students’ experience from their parents’ guidance is important. This should be
carefully conducted to assess the ultimate impact.
Solution 1. The impact on the parents will be their continued efforts in learning and
practicing career guidance, even without workshop support. This could be done monitoring their
activities, participation, and promotion of the workshops and could be done through observations
and interviews. Conversations with students about their experience after their parents received
trainings can also help assess the result. The cases of students who benefited from the change of
their parents’ behaviors should be documented in a detailed way, with the consent from the
family.
Solution 2. After a year’s operation of the platform, surveys on students about their
feelings regarding this career-guidance parents’ support platform will be conducted. Surveys on
parents about their feedback on this platform will also be conducted, with questions about their
take-aways from the platform. The two surveys will be used as an evaluation of the impact on
both students and parents. Phone interviews with selected students about examples of good
career guidance they gained from their parents and the platform will be taken, which could be
done on a yearly basis.
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 124

Solution 3. Each year, surveys about satisfaction levels of the partnership from students,
parents, and the school faculty will be conducted. Phone interviews with students about what
they have benefited from the family school partnership will be done as a follow-up activity. A
suggestion box at the entrance of the school will serve to collect more ideas. Check periodically
if there are quality suggestions in this regard.
If the integrated program with the proposed three solutions are successful, students will
benefit from career-related parent guidance, which will be indicated from CRPSS results. The
three solutions are integrated, with the first one as the training program, the second as the
learning platform to encourage practicing and continuous improvement, and the last one as the
culture of support to ensure positive reinforcement at all stages of implementation.
Implications for Future Research
In this research, the need for parents’ career guidance to their children has been
confirmed and evaluated at a private high school in Shanghai. Considering the above-mentioned
limitations, future research about the career guidance in general aspects and career-related parent
support in public high school could be conducted to achieve a much larger scope for the
generalization of the research findings. Given the fact that most of the parents who are involved
in parent support activities are mothers, fathers’ perspectives related to career guidance need to
be further evaluated. For future research, fathers’ survey data could be purposefully collected.
Incentives could be considered to encourage fathers to join the survey as well as interviews so
that the inter-relationship between fathers and mothers could be analyzed. Therefore, the needs
of parents could be more accurately identified, and solutions could be more clearly targeted. In
addition, the CRPSS survey could be done in Shanghai across all the public and private high
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 125

schools so that more data could be collected and analyzed to have an overview of the current
stage of career related parent support in Shanghai.
Conclusion
Facing one of the toughest eras of disruptive change, with the rise of information
overload and social anxiety, to thrive in a world where change is constant and learning never
stops, calls for new considerations of career development by shifting the focus from job
matching and searching to agile and creative skills development. To stay competitive in the
digital era requires the young generation be well equipped with career and life skills for the 21st
century global workplace. During adolescence, the young generation needs to have a good
understanding of their interests, skills, and values and pursue their career and life goals
consistent with their understandings (Super 1992). Career guidance in high school is crucial and
urgent. Gysbers (2008) emphasizes the importance of self-concept development during the high
school years. Both family and school play critical roles to support and guide the students’
development of necessary skills, shape future-oriented mindsets, and explore life meanings
(Partnership for 21st Century Skills, n.d.a.). The younger generation needs individualized
parental support in the age of self-exploration and with the right parental guidance, they can
master goal setting and planning, sharpen their decision-making skills, identify their interests and
crystallize their value.
This study concludes that there are strong and urgent needs for parents in SUIS Gubei in
Shanghai to provide career-related parent guidance for their children. The validated assumed
knowledge cause is that parents need to know how to guide their children for the 21st century
global workplace and how to reflect on their own effectiveness in providing guidance. From the
motivation perspective, parents need to feel that their role, in addition to that of the school, is
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 126

critical in career guidance and ultimately, students’ success in making a relevant and appropriate
career decision by themselves. Parents need to believe they are capable of effectively guiding
their children in the discussions of career-related topics. From the school perspective, the school
needs to improve collaborative partnerships with the parents and work together with the parents
to codevelop workshops and programs in developing students’ 21st century skills.
To address these identified needs, an integrated program with three solutions is suggested
for SUIS Gubei from providing training workshops to parents about career guidance to
establishing online and offline career-related parent support platforms and enhancing the family
school partnership. The three solutions are integrated, with the first one as the training program,
the second as the learning platform to encourage practicing and continuous improvement, and the
last one as the culture of support to ensure positive reinforcement at all stages of implementation.
A CRPSS survey to students will be conducted before and after the program launch. If the
integrated program with the proposed three solutions are successful, students will benefit from
career related parent guidance, shown by the score improvement of the CRPSS result. This
program maybe further generalized to apply this program to all of private high schools in
Shanghai.

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 127

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CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 142

APPENDIX A
Survey Items
Survey:

1. Which grade is your child in?
Grade9 Grade10 Grade11 Grade12

2. What’s your role?
Dad Mom Guardian Others___________________

3. Did you study in China during your adolescence?
Yes No

4. Career guidance is about helping my child to get a job.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

5. Career guidance is about developing skills. (Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree,
Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

6. Providing appropriate career guidance to students is critical in high school time.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

7. Please rank in order according to the importance level for the below skills that your
child need to develop:
• Decision making skills ____
• Communication skills ____
• Critical thinking skills _____
• Problem solving skills ____

8. Please identify the importance level for below life and career skills for 21st century
workplace? Extremely important, important, somewhat important, somewhat not important, not important, totally not
important
• Creativity and innovation
• Critical thinking
• Problem solving
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Adaptability
• Initiative & Self-Direction
• Social & Cross-Cultural Skills
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 143

• Leadership Responsibility & Accountability
• Independent Decision-making skills

9. How frequent do you talk to your child about career topic?
Never, once a year, once a quarter, once a month, once a week, frequently

10. I reflect on my knowledge in providing guidance to my children.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

11. I reflect on my ability in providing guidance to my children.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

12. I feel frustrated when I talk to my child about career topics.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

13. I feel confident when I talk to my child about career topics.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

14. I think I am a liberal parent who allows my child to mix with anybody.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

15. I think student’s academic outcome is the most important during high school.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

16. I give my children freedom to make decisions.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

17. I expect more from my children than giving.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

18. I do not set high expectation on my children.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

19. I know my communication styles in guiding my children’s development.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

20. I think I am an over-protective parent.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

21. Providing career guidance to my children is worthy even if it takes more time and efforts
in learning about how to do it. (Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly
agree)

22. Learning the content about how to provide career guidance to my children is valuable for
me.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 144

23. Learning the content about how to provide career guidance to my children is useful for
me.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

24. I wish that the school or other institution could provide career guidance trainings to
parents.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

25. Career guidance is school’s responsibility. (Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree,
Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

26. Career guidance is too early for high school students. (Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat
disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)
27. Students should be responsible for their own career. (Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat
disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

28. Parents’ major role is to provide financial support to children, that’s all.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

29. Parents should help their children to find a job.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

30. I wish my children could do some jobs similar to my occupation so that I could provide
guidance and support to him/her.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

31. I wish my children to find an easy job; we have made all the efforts to cultivate an easy
life for him/her.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

32. I am confident that I can guide my children in the discussion of career-related topics.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)
33. SUIS Gubei has a collaborative partnership with parents.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)
34. The school makes efforts to help parents see them being an important part of students’
career development.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)
35. SUIS Gubei work effectively with parents to codevelop workshops and events.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)
36. The school offers workshops at times that are conducive to parents’ participation.
(Strongly disagree, Disagree, Somewhat disagree, Somewhat agree, Agree, Strongly agree)

Thank you for your time!

Are you willing to participate in a one-hour interview for this study to share your perspective in
career guidance?
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 145

If yes, please leave your mobile phone or email address: -
________________________________________________.

Do you know someone in your network in this school who would be a right person to contact to
provide his/her perspective in career guidance in high school? If yes, please leave the name and
contact information of the person:
________________________________________________.

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 146

APPENDIX B
Interview Protocol
Interview:

1. Tell me how you feel after you talk with your child on career-related topics? How
satisfied are you overall with the conversation, why?
2. How do you make goal setting with your child? Can you give an example?
3. How confident are you about your ability to help your child find their strengths? Can
you give an example?
4. To what extent do you feel it’s valuable for parents to provide career guidance to their
children? What are some benefits that you feel there are?
5. Some people may say that it is not important to provide parental career guidance for
child. What do you think?
6. Some people may say that giving a career guidance is to help them find a job. What do
you think of this?
7. What do you think are the reasons students are successful in making career decisions?
8. How do you see your ability to provide career guidance for your child? Do you have an
example to share?
9. Tell me about examples of school and parent partnerships.
10. What measures has the school taken to involve parents in the development of students?
Do you have any suggestions for career guidance in the school?
(What time is more effective? What is more effective in notifications? What prevents
your participation?)

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 147

APPENDIX C
Knowledge Worksheet Joyce Yuan Gong

Organizational Global Goal
SUIS Gubei is dedicated to preparing students to become confident global citizens with
international mindset.

The school needs to prepare students being ready for 21st century global workplace.
Stakeholder Goal
By the 2022 school year, Chinese parents will provide career-related parent support to their children
in high school to get them prepared for 21st century global workplace.
Assumed
Knowledge
Influence
Knowledge Type Knowledge Influence
Assessment

Learning
Solution
Principle
Proposed
Solution
Parents need to
understand that
career guidance is
about developing
life and career
skills for 21st
century global
workplace, not
only about getting
a job.
Declarative
(Conceptual)

Survey:
(Strongly disagree,
Disagree, Somewhat
disagree, Somewhat agree,
Agree, Strongly agree)

4. Career guidance is
about getting a job.
5. Career guidance is
about developing
skills.

7. Please rank the most
important skills my
child need to develop
is (rank 1 as the most
important):
• Decision making skills
• Communication skills
• Critical thinking skills
• Problem solving skills

8. Which of the
following life and
career skills are for

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 148

21st century
workplace?
• Creativity and
innovation
• Critical thinking
and problem
solving
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Flexibility &
Adaptability
• Initiative & Self-
Direction
• Social & Cross-
Cultural Skills
• Productivity &
Accountability
• Leadership
Responsibility &
Accountability
• Independent
Decision-making
skills

Interview:
6. Some people may say
that giving a career
guidance is to help them
find a job. What do you
think of this?
7.What do you think are
the reasons students are
successful in making
career decisions?

Parents need to
know the process
in guiding their
children for 21st
century workplace

Procedural

Survey:
9. How frequent do you
talk to your child
about career topic?
Never, once a year, once a
quarter, once a month,
once a week, frequently

To develop
mastery,
individuals
must acquire
component
skills, practice
integrating
them, and
know when to
apply what
Providing a
training for
parents on
how to set a
goal, how to
follow-up and
basic
coaching
skills such as
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 149

26. Giving students in high
school career guidance is
too early.
(Strongly disagree,
Disagree, Somewhat
disagree, Somewhat agree,
Agree, Strongly agree)

Interview:
2. How do you make goal
setting with your child?
Can you give an example?

they have
learned
(Schraw &
McCrudden,
2006)
how to ask
questions.
Parents need to
know how to
reflect on their own
effectiveness in
providing guidance
about readiness for
21st century
workplace.
Metacognitive

Survey:
(Strongly disagree,
Disagree, Somewhat
disagree, Somewhat agree,
Agree, Strongly agree)

12. I feel frustrated when
I talk to my child
about career topics.

13. I feel confident when
I talk to my child
about career topics.
(Strongly
disagree,
Disagree,
Somewhat
disagree,
Somewhat agree,
Agree, Strongly
agree)

10. I reflect on my
knowledge in
providing guidance
to my children.

11. I reflect on my ability
in providing
guidance to my
children.

14. I think I am a liberal
parent who allows
The use of
metacognitive
strategies
facilitates
learning
(Baker, 2006)
Provide
parents
platform to
share and
communicate
their
experience,
seek feedback
so that they
could reflect
on the
effectiveness
in providing
guidance.

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 150

my child to mix with
anybody.

16. I give my children
freedom to make
decisions.

17. I expect more from
my children than
giving.

18. I do not set high
expectation on my
children.

19. I know my
communication
styles in guiding my
children’s
development.

20. I think I am an over-
protective parent.

Interview:
1. Tell me how you feel
after you talk with
your child on career-
related topics? How
satisfied are you
overall with the
conversation, why?

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 151

Motivation Worksheet Joyce Yuan GONG

Organizational Global Goal
SUIS Gubei is dedicated to preparing students to become confident global citizens with
international mindset.

As part of the goal, the school needs help parents understand 21st century global workplace so that
both could give guidance to students to make them prepared.

Stakeholder Goal
By the 2022 school year, Chinese parents will provide career-related parent support to their
children in high school to get them prepared for 21st century global workplace.
Motivation
Construct
Assumed
Motivation
Influence
Motivation
Influence
Assessment

Motivationa
l Solution
Principle
Proposed
Solution
Value Parents need to
see the
importance and
usefulness in
providing career
guidance to their
children.
Survey:
(Strongly disagree,
Disagree, Somewhat
disagree, Somewhat
agree, Agree,
Strongly agree)

21.Providing career
guidance to my
children is worth to
me even if it takes
more time and efforts
in learning and
reflection on how to
do it.

22.Learning the
content about how to
provide career
guidance to my
children is valuable
for me.

23.Learning the
content about how to
provide career
guidance to my
children is useful for
me.

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 152

6.Providing
appropriate career
guidance to students is
critical in high school
time.

15.I think student’s
academic outcome is
the most important
during high school.

Interview:
4. To what extent do
you feel it’s
valuable for
parents to provide
career guidance to
their children?
What are some
benefits that you
feel there are?
5. Some people may
say that it is not
important to
provide parental
career guidance
for child. What do
you think?

Attributions Parents should
feel that their role,
in addition to that
of the school, is
critical in career
guidance and
ultimately,
students’ success
in making a
relevant and
appropriate career
decision by
themselves.
Survey:
(Strongly disagree,
Disagree, Somewhat
disagree, Somewhat
agree, Agree, Strongly
agree)

25.Career guidance is
school’s
responsibility.

27. Students should
be responsible for
their own career,
parents just provide
education financial
support.
Activating
personal
interest
through
opportunities
for choice and
control can
increase
motivation
(Eccles, 2006)

Positive
emotional
environmen
ts support
motivation
Develop training
materials and
activities
relevant and
useful to
parents,
connected to
their interests
and based on
real-world tasks
(Pintrich, 2003)

Teach evidence-
based study
skills and
strategies to
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 153

28. Parents’ main
responsibility are to
provide financial
support to their
children in learning
and development.

29. Parents should help
their children to find a
job.

30. I wish my children
could do some jobs
similar to my
occupation so that I
could provide guidance
and support to him/her.

31. I wish my children
to find an easy job; we
have made all the
efforts to cultivate an
easy life for him/her.

(Clark &
Estes, 2008)
enable parents
success and
alleviate anxiety
( Lord& kanfer,
2002)

Building
supportive and
caring personal
relationship in
the parents’
community
(Pintrich,
2003)
Self-
Efficacy
Parents need to
believe they are
capable of
effectively
guiding their
children in the
discussion of
career-related
topics.
Survey:
(Strongly disagree,
Disagree, Somewhat
disagree, Somewhat
agree, Agree, Strongly
agree)

32. I am confident
that I am capable of
effectively guiding
my children in the
discussion of
career-related
topics.

Interview:
3.How confident are
you about your ability
to help your child find
their strengths? Can
you give an example?
8.How do you see your
ability to provide
career guidance for
High self-
efficacy can
positively
influence
motivation,
feedback and
modeling
increase self-
efficacy.
(Pajares, 2006)

Use models and
feedback to
enhance parents’
confidence.
Provide goal-
directed
practice
coupled with
frequent,
accurate,
credible,
targeted and
private
feedback on
progress in
learning and
performance
(Pajares,
2006).
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 154

your child? Do you
have an example to
share?

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 155

Organizational Worksheet – Joyce Yuan GONG

Organizational Mission
SUIS Gubei is dedicated to preparing students to become confident global citizens with international
mindset.

Organizational Global Goal
As part of the goal, the school needs help parents understand 21st century global workplace so that
both could give guidance to students to make them prepared.

Stakeholder Goal
By the 2022 school year, Chinese parents will provide career-related parent support to their children in
high school to get them prepared for 21st century global workplace.

Organizational
Influence
Category
Assumed Organizational
Influences

Organizational
Influence Assessment

Research-Based
Recommendation
or Solution
Principle

Proposed
Solution
Cultural
Model
Influence 1
The school needs to have
collaborative partnership
with parents.

Survey:
(Strongly disagree,
Disagree, Somewhat
disagree, Somewhat
agree, Agree, Strongly
agree)

33. SUIS Gubei has a
collaborative
partnership with
parents.

Interview:
9.Tell me about
examples of school and
parent partnerships.

Strong
stakeholder
engagement is
perhaps the most
critical factor for
achieving
successful
program
execution in our
fast-paced world.

Baugh, A.
(2015).
Stakeholder
Engagement (1st
ed., Vol. 18).
CRC Press.

Have
parents
involved in
the
curriculum
and
activities
design.
Cultural
Model
Influence 2
The school needs to
engage parents to create
a culture that parents
seeing them being an
important part of
students’ development.

Survey:
34. The school makes
efforts to help parents
see them being an
important part of
students’ career and life
development.

Cultural
Setting
Influence 1
The school needs to
work together with
parents to codevelop
workshops and programs
Survey:
24. I wish that the
school or other
institution could
Social
interaction,
cooperative
learning, and
Create a
community
of learners
where
CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 156

in developing students’
21st century skills.

provide career
guidance trainings
to parents.

35. SUIS Gubei work
effectively with parents
to codevelop
workshops and events.

cognitive
apprenticeship
(such a
reciprocal
teaching)
facilitate
construction of
new knowledge
(Scott &
Palinscar, 2006)
everyone
supports
everyone
else’
attempt to
learn
(Yough &
Anderman,
2006)
Cultural
Setting
Influence 2
The school needs to offer
workshops at times that
are conducive to parents’
participation.

Survey:
36. The school offer
workshops at
times that are
conducive to
parents’
participation.

Interview:
10.What measures has
the school taken to
involve parents in the
development of
students? Do you have
any suggestions for
career guidance in the
school?
(What time is more
effective? What is more
effective in
notifications? What
prevents your
participation?)

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 157

APPENDIX D
Informed Consent/Information Sheet
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Information Sheet for Research

Career-related Parent Support in High School in Shanghai

You are invited to participate in a research study conducted by Yuan Gong at the University of Southern
California. Please read through this form and ask any questions you might have before deciding whether or
not you want to participate.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
This research study aims to understand the needs for high school Chinese parents in the areas of their
knowledge and skills, motivation, and organization resources necessary to prepare student being
ready for 21st century global workplace.

PARTICIPANT INVOLVEMENT
If you agree to take part in this study, you will be asked to do an interview which will be close your
workplace or living place and it will take around one hour. You do not have to answer any questions
you don’t want to.

PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION
You will receive RMB100 for the participation.

CONFIDENTIALITY
If data are anonymous:
There will be no identifiable information obtained in connection with this study. At the completion of the
study, the anonymous data may be used for future research studies. If you do not want your data used in
future studies, you should not participate.

If data are coded or identifiable:
Any identifiable information obtained in connection with this study will remain confidential. At the
completion of the study, direct identifiers will be destroyed and the de-identified data may be used for future
research studies. If you do not want your data used in future studies, you should not participate.

Required language for either condition:
The members of the research team and the University of Southern California’s Human Subjects Protection
Program (HSPP) may access the data. The HSPP reviews and monitors research studies to protect the rights
and welfare of research subjects.

INVESTIGATOR CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact Mrs. Yuan Gong at
yuangong@usc.edu or +86 13671513062.

CAREER-RELATED PARENT SUPPORT IN HIGH SCHOOL 158

IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have questions, concerns, or complaints about your rights as a research participant or the research in
general and are unable to contact the research team, or if you want to talk to someone independent of the
research team, please contact the University Park Institutional Review Board (UPIRB), 3720 South Flower
Street #301, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0702, (213) 821-5272 or upirb@usc.edu.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract The purpose of this study was to conduct a needs analysis for high school Chinese parents with Shanghai United International School Gubei Campus (SUIS Gubei) in the areas of their knowledge, motivation, and organizational influence to reach the school’s goal to develop students for the 21st century global workplace. Mixed-methods approach was used to conduct this study. This study concludes that there are strong and urgent needs for parents in SUIS Gubei to provide career-related parent guidance for their children. Parents need to know how to guide their children for the 21st century global workplace and how to reflect on their own effectiveness in providing guidance. Parents need to feel that their role, in addition to that of the school, is critical in career guidance and ultimately, students’ success in making a relevant and appropriate career decision by themselves. Parents need to believe they are capable of effectively guiding their children in the discussions of career-related topics. From the school perspective, the school needs to improve collaborative partnerships with the parents and work together with the parents to codevelop workshops and programs in developing students’ 21st century skills. To address these identified needs, an integrated program with three solutions is suggested for SUIS Gubei from providing training workshops to parents about career guidance to establishing online and offline career related parental support platforms and enhancing the family school partnership. The three solutions are integrated, with the first one as the training program, the second as the learning platform to encourage practicing and continuous improvement, and the last one as the culture of support to ensure positive reinforcement at all stages of implementation. With careful planning and execution, this program could be further generalized to apply to all the private high schools in Shanghai.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Gong, Joyce Yuan (author)

Core Title Career-related parent support in a high school in Shanghai: a needs analysis

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Global Executive

Publication Date 08/15/2019

Defense Date 07/15/2019

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag 21st century global workplace,career-related parent support,Chinese parents,CRPSS,OAI-PMH Harvest,parental career guidance,private high school in Shanghai

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Filback, Robert (committee chair), Harju-Luukkainen, Heidi (committee member), Picus, Larry (committee member)

Creator Email joyce.gong@kornferry.com,yuangong@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-216203

Unique identifier UC11663053

Identifier etd-GongJoyceY-7791.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-216203 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-GongJoyceY-7791.pdf

Dmrecord 216203

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Gong, Joyce Yuan

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA