An assertiveness training program for indecisive students attending an Italian University.
Career Development Quarterly › Vol. 51 Nbr. 4, June 2003
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An assertiveness training program for indecisive students attending an Italian University.
Indecisive students often present with social skills problems, which may make academic and vocational decision-making tasks difficult and complex for them. Moreover, choices regarding one's future require the ability to gather information, to search for help and support, to stave off intrusiveness and pressures, and to communicate one s decisions. Social competencies, particularly, play a significant role in vocational guidance activities. This article presents a training program devised to augment assertive competencies in indecisive students choosing a university course of study. Intended aims and the analyses to assess the efficacy of the intervention through self-evaluation and role-play assessment are described.
********** Numerous research studies have shown that academic-vocational indecision can significantly affect choice processes and can actually hinder adaptation processes (Jones, 1989; Lucas, 1993; Lucas & Epperson, 1990; Nota, 1999; Savickas & Jarjoura, 1991). Wanberg and Muchinsky (1992), who have studied the relationship between decisional status and psychological variables in depth, have considered aspects such as anxiety, locus of control, self-esteem, and self-awareness level. Their analyses have shown that indecision is associated with poor self-awareness, low knowledge of academic-vocational reality, high levels of anxiety, low self-esteem, and external locus of control. A consistent relationship also seems to exist between social competencies and indecision. Phillips and Bruch (1988), for instance, found that shy students, both male and female, were more indecisive than those who were not shy. Furthermore, the authors determined that shyness was negatively correlated both with the expression of interests, particularly regarding those professions requiring interpersonal skills, and with the active search for information necessary to activate the decisional processes. In this respect, the authors stated that concerns that centered on the self and on passive behaviors in relational contexts (often as...See the full content of this document
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