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ABSTRACT For more than 20 years, both careers education and guidance have drawn much of their rationale from the DOTS analysis which analyses practice for coverage of decision learning (D), opportunity awareness (O), transition learning (T), and self awareness (S). Its assumptions are rooted in theory, unifying the aims of careers education and careers guidance as enabling choice. More recent theory and practice engage a wider range of thinking: they acknowledge the complexity of contemporary career planning, and accommodate interactions which occur in the social and community life of the `choosing person'. The practical implications are for more progressive career learning, in conditions which enable `due process' to establish viable bases for both choice and change of mind. This thinking more sharply differentiates careers education from guidance, setting out a strong rationale for the former. It does not replace DOES, but extends it into a new-DOTS re-conceptualisation termed `career-learning space'. The effectiveness of career learning is determined by its transferable outcomes. New-DOTS thinking resonates with the conditions for transferable learning. There are possibilities here for building a strong consensus between practice, theory and policy.
What do we know about students' career-management needs?
Part of the justification for career-development theory is that it represents a user's point-of-view. A considerable part of its literature comprises reports of people engaged in career management (e.g. Banks et al., 1992; Carter, 1962; Hill, 1969; Hawthorn, 1998; Hodkinson et al., 1996; Maizels, 1970; Veness, 1962; Willis, 1977). Much of the remainder is given to secondary analysis of that material (Hodkinson & Sparkes, 1997; Law, 1981, 1996; Roberts, 1977; Roe, 1956; Super, 1957).
Theory is also justified by its ability to suggest useful practice. Theoretical explanations of how career works can help us to understand how most usefully to intervene. They can, therefore, suggest what a good careers-education programme should help people to learn.
Five major groups of relevant theories are set out in Table 1 (based on an analysis developed in detail in Law, 1996). If these claims for theory have any validity, then theory will be able to diagnose career management. The major premise of education is an imperfectly informed learner; if theory's diagnoses of such needs are recognisable to practitioners, then theory is a tool for developing their...