Career Development and Improvements of Preservice Teachers Through Design Your Life Course at Science and Technology Universities
Author: Chia-Chi Wang (Department of Education, National Kaohsiung Normal University), Shih-Hsiang Sung (Program in Interdisciplinary Studies, National Sun-Yat-sen University)
Vol.&No.：Vol. 67, No. 4
Date：December 2022
Pages：221-253
DOI：https://doi.org/10.6209/JORIES.202212_67(4).0007
Abstract：
Background and Purpose
In the life of a student, the college phase is often regarded as a preparation stage for exploring career options and entering society as an adult. Very few students begin thinking about their future careers and preparing for their lives soon after or before entering college. Most students delay the decision-making process until the year of graduation, at which point they feel helpless when they have to make a career decision; during this period, they start preparing for future employment by processing information related to career development. Compared with these students, preservice teachers have a distinct career prospect. Compared with other students from comprehensive universities, students at science and technology universities must overcome more hurdles to become qualified teachers. The aim of this study was to explore preservice teachers’ perspectives on career development and improvements in their self-identity after participating in a career design course, entitled Design Your Life, at a science and technology university.
Literature Review
This study reviewed research on the implementation of design thinking in education and on the career development and self-identity of preservice teachers. Design thinking was first introduced by the design company IDEO and the Stanford d.school. Currently, in the field of higher education, design thinking is widely implemented in business management, humanities and social sciences, medicine, and engineering. With the promotion of design thinking, career designing has exceeded its original scope and been developed into a set of basic methodologies for cross-disciplinary cooperation and innovation. However, few studies have focused on the implementation of design thinking in the field of teacher training. Design thinking is a process of continual exploration. In addition to exploring the needs of individuals through investigation and research and developing innovative strategies for solving relevant problems, designers receive feedback from others, develop creative solutions, and construct prototypes in the testing stage, which would subsequently lead to effective results. The creative and specific process of design thinking itself is the key to solving complex problems. Moreover, life is a process of continual exploration and problem-solving. Experiencing different careers helps individuals assess their most suitable career options. By accepting feedback from others, individuals can construct a life prototype to meet their ultimate life expectations. Preservice teachers at science and technology universities are highly likely to become future teachers; through the training process, they must discover their career potentials and educational work-related values.
Previous studies have conducted various exploratory investigations regarding the career development of preservice teachers. Through continual selection and trial experiences, future teachers can evaluate themselves and gradually outline the direction of their career development; they must identify a practical and feasible goal and balance their ideal future self, personal ability, and reality. Regarding self-identity, studies have indicated that individuals form an inner structure on the basis of their abilities, experiences, beliefs, and inner drives; this structure represents self-identity, which increases or decreases with time or transfers. Therefore, individuals’ current state of self-identify is not the end point of self-identification. The development of self-identity is an exploratory process. To develop a distinct self-identity, individuals must be introspective and must persevere through a period of decision-making involving conflicts and doubts. Thus, to determine their career goals, preservice teachers must first explore their inner selves and the external environment and then make career decisions and commitments.
Methods
This study was based on Stanford University’s Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-lived, Joyful Life career planning course and the Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-lived, Joyful Life book (Burnett & Evans, 2016/2016). In an actual setting, career design courses are planned in accordance with the five-stage design thinking model (Stanford University); these stages are empathy, definition, idea, prototype, and test. Through design thinking, students explore their diverse interests and potentials, identify suitable career paths, and work toward future career development.
The present study selected preservice teachers from a total of 16 private science and technology universities and subjected them to the aforementioned course (three workshops, each lasting for 6h; total credit hours, 18) between March and July 2019. The study collected the following data for coding and analysis: teaching and reflective journals, class worksheets, homework sheets, student reports, and teaching feedback. Data were analyzed using triangulation correction and continual comparison methods to ensure the validity of the study findings.
Results
The results revealed that the preservice teachers could objectively view themselves through visual recordings and could discuss with others to increase their self-awareness levels. Convergent and divergent thinking resulting from the process of individual dialogue and teamwork helped strengthen the preservice teachers’ self-identity and career orientation. Finally, they could develop a positive creative mindset — fail early, succeed sooner — and could devise strategies to solve their life problems.
Discussion and Recommendations
On the basis of the findings, this study suggests that preservice teachers can not only use design thinking to plan their own careers but also learn how to implement this approach in designing courses for others. For example, future teachers may use the five-stage design thinking model to design courses for primary and secondary school students in order to help them discover their life or on-campus problems and to promote problem-oriented learning. Therefore, teacher education centers may include this course in their curricula and support preservice teachers who require career guidance and assistance with career development. Furthermore, although this study focused on preservice teachers at private science and technology universities, the findings may be useful for high school and college students because career indecision is a normal and common phenomenon. Thus, the content of this course may be expanded to include general high school and college students. Future studies are warranted to expand the content of teaching commitment in the current curriculum; moreover, future research should include more evaluation tools, such as career development scales, value scales, and self-identity scales, to offer empirical evidence for teacher education centers.
Keywords：preservice teachers at science and technology universities, design thinking, career development, self-identity