The impact of the environment of pupils with special educational needs on their career choices

Abstract

The life path building characteristics of students with special educational needs can be diverse (Mező-Móré 2021). Their opportunities for further education depend to a large extent on the type of SEN included in the expert opinion of the given student, the support options available in the educational institution and the acceptable SEN categories included in the vocational basic document of secondary schools. Because of all this, the life path building processes of SEN students can be much more complicated than of those students with typical development. Therefore, they generally need more differentiated support and even more experience- and discovery-based career guidance methods.

The study presents the results of an exploratory research conducted among 688 parents of 8th-grade children focusing on career guidance activities related to career choices. 195 of the responding parents said that their child has an expert opinion, so their answers were prioritized in this study. During the analysis of the obtained results, the possible points of intervention where teachers and career counselling professionals can more effectively plan their activities, and their corresponding methods became visible.

The study concludes with a presentation of experience-based and discovery-based career guidance methods and opportunities that can also be used in practice.

Keywords: career guidance, experimental learning, special educational needs, BTMN status, pedagogical methods.