A Follow‐Up of Adult Career Counseling Clients of a University Extension Center

An unannounced, telephone follow-up evaluation of 181 out-of-school adults who had enrolled in 1 of 2 programs of individual career counseling at a university extension center indicated that 78% were satisfied or very satisfied. Eightyfive percent reported that they were following through on their counseling in a variety of ways, including pursuing further education (35%) and changing jobs or occupations (14%). Satisfaction was not related at a statistically significant level to completion of their allotted counseling interviews, program, gender, or education level. The discussion considers the implications for offering career counseling to adults and for future research. Adults are increasingly seeking individual career counseling to help in charting their careers, but scrutiny of the costs of career counseling is also increasing (Reardon, 1996). Individual sessions seem well suited for adults because they provide a forum needed by adults for the in-depth examination of their unique work and educational experiences, and individual sessions can more easily accommodate adult schedules. Meta-analyses suggest that individual career counseling sessions are not only the most effective but also one of the most expensive career interventions (Oliver & Spokane, 1988; Whiston, Sexton, & Lasoff, 1998). Yet the career counseling literature provides little information for counselors in university extension centers and community colleges to use in anticipating the costs and benefits of providing such counseling for adults. Important considerations in a university extension center's decision about offering a service are whether its clientele will make full use of it and whether other services will be required for the service to succeed. Knowing whether subgroups of clients are likely to use different numbers of sessions or require ancillary services (such as support groups and placement assistance) to follow through with their career counseling is essential. Studies of career counseling of adult clients generally do not address completion of allotted counseling sessions and prescribed assessments, although both require substantial outlays. Spokane (1991) speculated that dropout rates are high, but he did not cite studies confirming that. The single recent study that I located and that provided some information about the career counseling dropout rates of adults is one by Robbins, Chartrand, McFadden, and Lee (1994). They reported that only 71% of the adult clients in a seven-session career counseling workshop attended five or more sessions. Although noncompletion ofother forms of counseling in college counseling centers and community agencies is widespread and has been studied extensively (Howard, Kopta, Krause, & Orlinsky, 1986; Mennicke, Lent, & Burgoyne, 1988), it is surprising that it has not received more attention in the literature on career counseling. Nonuse of allotted counseling and assessment hours is also likely to concern counselors in university extension centers because high attrition from some of their programs may imperil their state funding. If some client subgroups are not using hours dedicated to their counseling, it would be important to identify them to save resources and to pinpoint possible systemic shortcomings. Perhaps even more important concerns than such cost factors are client feelings about their experience after they have had a chance to follow through with the action plan developed in counseling and information on the nature of clients' follow-through. Are clients satisfied with some but not other aspects of their career counseling, and what percentages of them change jobs, enter education programs, or follow through in other ways? Counselors serving adults will want to consider the answers to such questions, yet Whiston et al. (1998) noted that none of the intervention studies in their meta-analysis, whether of adult clients or other populations, reported follow-up data on clients. …