Barriers to adolescents' information seeking for career decision making

Abstract

Nearly 400 Canadian adolescents were surveyed about their information seeking for career decision making. A written questionnaire gathered data on degree of helpfulness of various information sources and the ways in which these sources have helped and asked about some of the barriers to information seeking faced by adolescents. Thirty semistructured interviews with participants drawn from the same sample asked participants about their decision-making and information-search processes, their concerns about these processes, and the barriers they face in accessing helpful information for career decision making. This article focuses on the data related specifically to the barriers faced by the participants, revealing myriad difficulties that can hinder adolescent career decision makers. Forty percent of youth do not know where to go for help in their decision making, and 38% feel that they need to go to too many different places for the information they require. As well, the respondents revealed that trustworthiness of information sources is critical to the ultimate usefulness of the help received. The discussion suggests some avenues for further research which would advance understanding of these barriers, and makes suggestions for improved delivery of information services to adolescents making career decisions.