Scientific Underpinnings of Vocational Guidance for Secondary

School Pupils

N. Majidov

, J. Majidov

and B. Majidov

National University of Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Jizzakh State Pedagogical Institute, Jizzakh, Uzbekistan

Tashkent Financial Institute, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Keywords Socio-Economic Aspect, Vocational Guidance, Psycho Physiological Qualities, Human Factor, Personality.

Abstract This study explores the multi-dimensional landscape of career guidance, dissecting its socio-economic,

technological, medical, psychological, and pedagogical dimensions. Investigating how these facets converge

to prepare young individuals for informed career choices, the research delves into the psychological

underpinnings pivotal for efficient vocational selection. Emphasizing the significance of polytechnic

education, it examines how diverse academic subjects offer insights into a spectrum of professions, cultivating

a versatile skill set. Anchored in B.F. Lomov's motive-driven activity theory, the study scrutinizes how

internal motives steer career decisions. It highlights the role of vocational advisors in refining neuropathic

tendencies and details profession-specific requirements through professiograms. The study advocates for

student engagement and self-observation to facilitate well-informed career pathways.

1 INTRODUCTION

Career guidance comprises a system of socio-

economic, technological, medical, psychological, and

pedagogical activities designed to ready young

individuals for a conscious selection of their

profession and speciality. The socio-economic

element of vocational guidance assesses the labour

requirement in a country or region, whilst the

technological aspect determines the physical and

moral-psychological qualities necessary for the

professional; medical and psychological elements

diagnose the level and unique characteristics of

physical and mental development of the professional

applicant and correct and further develop the

psychophysiological traits of students requiring

specialisation in pedagogy. Consequently, the crux of

active and effective vocational guidance resides in the

psychological and pedagogical activity of education

and correction. The human element serves as the

primary subject of educational influence at all stages

of career guidance work within schools.

The psychological framework of career-oriented

activity involves the constant formation of the

Corresponding author

individual traits of the student, their needs, interests,

beliefs, life experience, neurodynamic qualities and

personality traits, mental processes and relationships,

which form the foundation of professional work

efficiency and the conscious selection of profession

and specialisation.

A systematic exploration of vocational guidance

issues is particularly significant in polytechnic

education. Each academic subject is 'engaged' in

some manner in professional labour activity,

justifying or disclosing in its own way

(mathematically, physically, biologically, etc.) the

technology or economics of labour, its hygienic,

aesthetic, and humanistic aspects, and prospects for

development in relation to scientific, technical, and

social progress. Polytechnic education will contribute

to the development of students' professional skills and

interests provided each academic subject equips the

student with specific knowledge, and discloses the

commonalities in professions, which, when

integrated into the structure of other types of

professional activity, makes the student a well-

rounded individual, thus creating the conditions for

their readiness for an array of professional activities

– a 'jack of all trades'. This forms one of the most

Majidov, N., Majidov, J. and Majidov, B.

Scientiﬁc Underpinnings of Vocational Guidance for Secondary School Pupils.

DOI: 10.5220/0012478400003792

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 1st Pamir Transboundary Conference for Sustainable Societies (PAMIR 2023), pages 119-124

ISBN: 978-989-758-687-3

119

important theoretical foundations for the

development of poly-professionalism in young

people, enabling a seamless transition of existing

interests to the required speciality, as observed in

regions with a limited range of professions and

specialities or in the presence of contraindications to

the preferred profession.

2 THE MAIN FINDINGS AND

RESULTS

Human activity is invariably influenced by an

individual's internal qualities, knowledge,

experiences, and perspectives. Paramount among

these is the motivational mindset. A motive

represents an internal driving force, forming the basis

of psychological preparation for work in general, and

for work within a specific professional field in

particular. A motive guides the conscious selection of

a profession. B.F. Lomov contends that activity is

driven by one motive or another and is targeted

towards achieving a specific goal. The 'motive-goal'

vector functions as a central core, organising the

entirety of mental processes and states engaged

within this activity. At the initial stages of career

guidance, external stimuli (such as imitation,

command, external appeal of an activity, etc.) that do

not influence the need aspect, which internally

stimulates activity, can act as a catalyst for the

execution of professional tasks. The role of a career

advisor is to transition external stimuli to internal

stimuli through suitable pedagogical influence and

personal impact. To this end, professional

information should be emotionally charged, eliciting

in students not only cognitive but also moral and

aesthetic responses. The emotional element in

vocational guidance interactions with students, as is

known, stimulates volitional activity. The cognitive

aspect in professional actions, along with positive

emotional experiences when performing them, are the

primary components of interest, which serve as a

significant stimulus for a person's mental and

physical activity.

Every professional activity, every labour, is an

expenditure of human labour power, as the founders

of Marxism underscored. Labour activity, regardless

of its type, represents the expenditure of the human

brain, muscles, nerves, arms, and so on. For the

human labour power to be spent productively, it needs

to be more or less developed. Naturally, the

educational and vocational advisory work of the

school should aim at developing certain aspects and

qualities of a person (physical and mental) and re-

educating others. This necessitates a comprehensive

understanding of the student on the part of the

professional advisor.

In professional leadership and career choice, it is

primarily essential to consider the individual

characteristics of the person – innate anatomical and

physiological, and chiefly the customary,

characteristic qualities acquired during the

educational process. Congenital typological traits of

the nervous system, exhibited in labour activity

through various variations of strength, mobility, and

balance of nervous processes, and in a person's

temperament, should be closely scrutinised by a

vocational guidance counsellor for refinement.

Psychologists – such as B.M. Teplova, V.D.

Nebylytsyna, and others – have proven that

significantly different characters can be formed based

on the same properties of higher nervous activity in

people, and that similar characters can be formed

based on different properties of the nervous system.

The same should be recognised concerning

introversion (directed inward, towards oneself) and

extroversion (directed outward, towards objects and

phenomena of the surrounding reality) of the

personality. In vocational guidance work, some

neuropathic and psychopathic inclinations –

excessive excitability and introversion, suspicion,

aggressiveness, etc., which are manifested to one

degree or another in individual boys and girls –

should be taken into account. When observing these

phenomena and planning methods and means of

overcoming them, attention should be paid to their

genesis (to discern their root: functional disorders

triggered by adverse living conditions and

upbringing, or some congenital pathogenic

circumstances – alcoholism, nervous diseases of the

parents). Nevertheless, in all such cases, a delicate

pedagogical approach should be employed, with

tactfully given recommendations, educational and

labour tests taking into account the student's interests,

aimed, along with re-education, at choosing such

labour activity that will not provoke neuropathic

manifestations in behaviour.

During the processes of vocational information

provision and vocational consultation, a career

guidance counsellor should base their decisions on

the psychograms and physiograms of an individual's

personality, in addition to professiograms. It's vital to

consider the overall health of young men and women,

the state of their sensory organs - vision, hearing,

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tactile, olfactory, and gustatory sensitivity - as well as

their mental activity. This includes observation and

curiosity, creative tendencies in drawing and

sketching, an ability to perceive beauty, a sense for

novelty, a predisposition towards performing or

creative design activities, characteristics of motor

reactions such as speed, mobility or rigidity, rapidity

in acquiring skills and abilities, as well as the stability

or variability of moods, interests, and other personal

qualities of students. In all these aspects, the career

counsellor should base their decisions not on

empirical observations, but on scientifically sound

data.

As previously mentioned, it's important for a career

counsellor to be aware of any contraindications to

specific professions. It's known that colour blindness,

which is found in 5-7% of men (and 1-1.5% of

women), is contraindicated for the professions of

drivers and fabric sellers. For many professions, a

decrease in visual acuity, hearing (drivers, radio

operators, operators, etc.), smell and taste (food

workers, chemists), as well as disorders of the

respiratory and cardiovascular systems are

contraindicated. Currently, health authorities have

available a comprehensive list of scientifically

substantiated contraindications for many professions.

For instance, contraindications for a radiotelegraph

operator include decreased hearing, poor auditory

memory, a low level of performance, and fatigue.

In all levels of vocational guidance (including

vocational information provision, vocational

consultation, and drafting of a student's profile and

recommendations), the focus should be on the

professiogram of the profession, which should detail

the following:

1. General characteristics of the profession and its

individual specialties; skill levels in the profession

and its specialties.

2. Description of labour processes, types of work

performed.

3. Working conditions (labour, primarily physical or

mental; place of work - production premises or

natural conditions; collective or individual; hygienic

working conditions, potential occupational hazards).

4. Requirements for an individual’s specialty - their

mental and physical sphere, load on the nervous

system, emotional-volitional sphere.

5. The necessary knowledge for successful execution

of labour processes.

6. Skills - mental, physical.

7. The dynamics of the development of the profession

and specialty in connection with scientific and

technological progress.

8. Potential accidents, flawed work due to a person's

moral and psychological qualities.

9. The economy of the profession, its significance and

distribution in the regions of the country.

10. Where to acquire training for the profession.

Presently, there are approximately 1500 specialties.

As it's naturally impossible for a single career

counsellor to cover all professions and specialties,

they must resort to classifying them according to the

subjects (objects) of labour, the goals of labour,

working conditions, the tools of labour used, and the

leading knowledge with which labour activity is

carried out.

Regarding the subject of labour (according to E.A.

Klimov):

1. Human - nature (land, water, plants, animals,

nature conservation).

2. Human - technology (machines, mechanisms, their

manufacture, use in labour).

3. Human - human (work with people, collective

work, relationships with people, management of

people's work).

4. Human - symbol system (mathematical, graphic,

speech).

5. Human - artistic representation (literature, art).

By labour goals:

1. Gnostic activity (educational, cognitive, feature

recognition).

2. Transforming (scientific work, art, visual,

rationalisation activities).

3. Prospecting (geology, exploration of mineral

wealth, route mapping).

By the tools used:

1. Machine labour (turner, milling machine operator,

weaver, electric locomotive driver, driver, pilot,

tractor driver, combine operator).

2. Manual labour (locksmith, carpenter, fitter,

equipment regulator, mechanical assembly work,

drawing work).

3. Hardware labour (refinery operator, steelmaker,

thermistor technician, physicist, chemist).

4. Operator (control panel, tracking, working with

computers).

According to the leading knowledge:

Scientiﬁc Underpinnings of Vocational Guidance for Secondary School Pupils

121

1. Physical and mathematical knowledge

(engineering and technical work, astronomy,

astronautics).

2. Biological and chemical knowledge (medicine,

agronomy, pharmacology, chemical production).

3. Humanities (history, literature, art, linguistics,

pedagogy).

By working conditions:

1. Labour in different geographical latitudes (north,

southern regions, surface reliefs, water areas).

2. Hygienic conditions (work in conditions of

occupational health, day and night work, work of

drivers, long-term travel, various conditions of food

and rest).

3. Labour in enclosed spaces, in nature (factory

production labour, agricultural labour).

The provided information regarding the classification

of types of labour ought to be supplemented and

adjusted in accordance with scientific and

technological progress, as well as changes in working

conditions. When aiming at professional orientation

with the provided classifications of activity types, it

is necessary to distinguish common elements within

professions and specialties. This is important not only

in vocational counselling work and in the preliminary

determination of students' professional aptitude, but

also when they 'try on' professions, so as to provide a

broader perspective on the professional capabilities of

each boy and girl and facilitate a conscious choice of

professional direction.

As an example, we provide a professional analysis of

individual professions, which can be utilised in all

aspects of vocational guidance for students,

particularly when determining the requirements of a

profession for a specialist.

The professions listed below have the following

requirements for a specialist:

Table 1: Requirements for specialists.

Profession, activity Requirements

1 2

Pedagogical (teacher,

educator)

Consciousness and conviction. High literacy,

knowledge of one's subject, erudition, and the desire

for constant learning, accompanied by intellectual and

emotional activity. A high level of mental and

behavioural culture, tact, humanity, optimism, and

sociability.

Engineering and technical specialties

Physical and mathematical knowledge. A capacity for

spatial understanding and imagination; orientation in

space. Constructive and technical creativity, analytical

thinking; an inclination towards design; a predilection

for technical activity; an interest in a specific

engineering and technical speciality; keen observation

(visual, auditory, etc.), and an ability to predict

outcomes.

Driving professions

Excellent visual acuity and hearing; proficient colour

perception; swift reaction times; constructive and

technical thinking, quick-wittedness, consistent

attention, and the ability to distribute attention

effectively; spatial orientation; knowledge in the field

of physics; and a high standard of communication

skills.

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Medical specialties (doctor, paramedic, nurse),

veterinary

medicine

Thorough knowledge of biology, anatomy, and

physiology; excellent understanding of human

psychology, especially that of patients; compassion;

auditory and visual observation skills; the ability to

perform manipulations. Good knowledge of electrical

engineering, physics, and chemistry; patience when

dealing with patients; optimism; an inclination

towards interacting with patients; excellent memory

for different types of diseases and their symptoms, as

well as for remedies; understanding of animal

behaviour.

Economic

professions (planner, economist, materials scientist,

accountant, etc.)

Strong knowledge of fundamental sciences,

particularly computing; a tendency towards thrift and

efficiency; a clear understanding of industry

development; economic thinking; the ability to

incorporate future development prospects into

planning; accuracy in calculations; understanding of

the country's economy; politeness and a cultivated

manner of communication.

The outlined requirements for professions are

general and should be specified when constructing a

specialist's professiogram, for example: maths

teacher or primary school teacher; civil engineer or

mechanical engineer; general practitioner or surgeon,

etc.

Career paths are numerous: cinema, television

programmes, excursions, reading fiction, scientific

and technical literature, conversations with

specialists, etc. However, the primary ones are

technical and labour training, classes in special

circles.

All subjects within the general education curriculum

provide opportunities for revealing certain aspects of

the labour professions of human activity. By studying

academic subjects, students grasp the role of science

in the technological process, the creation of working

conditions, the aesthetics of labour activity, and the

process of overcoming difficulties specific to their

chosen profession and its requirements. The role of

polytechnic teaching through academic subjects

cannot be overestimated. Therefore, a career

counsellor, when conducting labour education of

young people, must continuously liaise with subject

teachers and educators.

In career guidance work, considerable attention

should be given to identifying the interests,

inclinations, and abilities of boys and girls.

There are numerous ways to identify an individual's

qualities and their suitability for a particular job.

These include medical, physiological, pedagogical,

and psychological research. Specialised laboratories

and institutes engage in the theory and practice of

professional selection. The most accessible ways to

identify personality traits include:

a). Observing students during their general and labour

education and assessing the level of development of

diligence, attention, discipline, consciousness,

interest in academic subjects, and the speed of

mastering skills, etc. The conclusions from these

observations will be reliable if they are carried out

purposefully, over a long time, and not just by one

person, but by all teachers, labour instructors, and

other competent individuals. Based on the results of

these observations, characteristics of the students are

compiled, which should reflect what is essential in

their personality, especially what pertains to their

work interests and goals;

b). Conversations with students about their interests

and inclinations, successes and difficulties in

assimilating educational knowledge, abilities, and

skills, and their success in labour training. For

students to be able to assess their successes and

qualities accurately, they need to be taught self-

observation, the ability to monitor the development of

their abilities and their alignment with the

requirements of their chosen profession, and

realistically evaluate the sustainability of their

interests and opportunities in mastering a speciality;

Scientiﬁc Underpinnings of Vocational Guidance for Secondary School Pupils

123

c). Medical indicators such as the state of health,

vision and hearing, the nervous system, and motor

function. When determining professional suitability

for more responsible professions, for example, a pilot,

an electric locomotive driver, a driver, an operator,

etc., it's necessary to inquire about more in-depth

psychophysiological characteristics and potential

psychopathic traits of the individual.

3 CONCLUSION

Patient and calm observation of students is the most

effective way to identify their individual capabilities.

In all instances, it's essential for a career counsellor to

seek advice from their teachers and, particularly, a

labour instructor (teacher), from a knowledgeable

representative of the industry that the student is

interested in. Only after that should professional

reorientation be considered. Crucial in all cases is a

test of the student's resolve and verification of the

stability of their interest in the speciality, even under

challenging and less favourable conditions.

The role of young men and women in career guidance

should not be passive. Self-observation is the path to

self-understanding. It's recommended that you

answer the following questions:

1. What holds the greatest interest? What kind of

work is done willingly, without much fatigue, and

doesn't become tedious?

2. In which activity (labour, educational) are the

greatest successes achieved? Which types of work, or

educational subjects, come easily and quickly, and

mastering which brings satisfaction?

3. For which activity (profession) are the best

(theoretical and practical) knowledge and skills

possessed?

4. Where and in what jobs (easy, difficult) have you

tried your hand at the vice activity of interest?

5. How did those who observed your work assess

your tests of resilience?

6. Why do you believe that you can achieve good

results in the profession that interests you?

7. What are the pros and cons of choosing your

profession?

Based on the results of the vocational guidance work,

characteristics-recommendations are compiled.

These reflect the individual psychophysical attributes

of a student who is graduating from school.

The characteristic should be optimistically oriented

towards the further development of the moral-

psychological and physical qualities of a professional

in the field where the applicant will end up (industry,

institution, special educational institution) after

graduation.

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