Students’ Perceptions about Teachers’ Feedback in a Career Construction: A Study in Vocational Education

Abstract

Introduction. The idea that feedback is information about the gap between the current and the desired level of performance is largely accepted in the literature. Likewise, it is thought that it has an impact in future beliefs about self, tasks or cognitive strategies. However, the importance that the students give to teacher’s feedback, as a guidance practice to develop their own future time perspectives in terms of vocational identity, reveals the need for improvement of this pedagogical practice as a possible new approach for career construction in the 21st century. The paper main goal is to understand how students, attending courses with vocational curriculum, regard the choice or the decision of a professional future, through the teachers’ feedback.Method. The methodological plan used, in addition to collecting socio-demographic identification data, the Dellas Identity Status Inventory-Occupation and two open questions about students’ perceptions of the teachers' feedback. Twenty-eight Portuguese students attending three different courses in the Lisbon metropolitan area, between 15 and 19 years of age, paricipated in this study.Results. Results suggest that although students are attending different vocational courses, it seems that most of them are in a Moratorium dimension, showing little or no ability to explore vocational goals.Discussion and Conclusion. Search for vocational goals can be a way to be adapted to an educational and labour reality and a way to be prepared to face a changing world.The teachers’ feedback comments are understood as motivators, coaches and clarifiers of future perspectives of career construction and development.