Baltic Journal of Career Education and Management

7-23

Authors: Dalia Augienė, Indra Kriaučiūnaitė

The efficient provision of vocational guidance and counselling services appear as the key element of training and employment at local, regional and national levels and act as a component of an active labour market policy. The Government of the Republic of Lithuania have approved a number of strategic documents focusing on the development of an integral coherent system of vocational guidance. The aim of a vocational information centre (VIC) is to convey quality information about the world of occupations, promote self-knowledge of choosing the right profession while designing a personal career as well as provide the parents and teachers with the required information. Upon the formation of new tendencies towards vocational information and counselling services, the modern day man finds the need to obtain virtual information a crucial issue. Therefore, the conducted research has analyzed the abundance of data presented by VIC websites and suggested a model for information that matches with the needs of consumers. The findings have allowed identifying the kind of information about VIC activities contained on the websites of upper-secondary schools and showed the content and problems of making information available in virtual space.

32-39

Authors: Liudmil D. Krastev, Bilyana B. Yordanova

Successful management of individual behavior requires knowledge about the personality and the organizations. The management functions of planning, controlling, organizing, and assessing are fundamental components of manager’s role. The literature review shows that there is variety of classifications about managerial style. In this article are considered some gender differences between managers as predictors of managerial behavior. This study is important because it reveals many of the often reflexive ways that gender differences, and the behaviors associated with them, are enacted in the organizations. Many the issues discussed in this paper are spontaneous, and reflect who managers are by virtue of the ways in which their professional realization took place. Women and men in organizations tend to have different communication and work styles. This provokes researchers to continue the debate about why such professional differences exist in the workplace. Gender-based group differences in organizations can create misunderstandings. Managers need to be especially aware of the potential for such misunderstandings in the work environment, both in their own actions and reactions as well as those of their colleagues and staff toward each other. The study shows significant gender differences in the manager’s professional sphere of activity and also in personality.

48-55

Authors: Ana Cristina Santos Duarte, Héctor Santiago Odetti

This study aims to identify what science teachers from Brazil and Argentina think about science education. This study is based on the viewpoint that science teaching, even today, is so fragmented and decontextualized with the predominance of traditional methods such as lectures and textbooks which in turn favor an abstract approach of the contents, decreasing the students’ motivation and interest for science. The research is qualitative, involving 20 teachers of science and biology, 10 from Brazil and 10 from Argentina, who responded to a semi-structured interview. The results show that the interviewed teachers, both in Brazil and Argentina, understand the need to rethink and change the current structure of science education in the intention of renewing curriculum structure, pedagogical practice and encourage the training of teachers towards meeting the training needs of the contemporary world.

62-70

Authors: Gunars Strods

The purpose of the study was to explore the correlation between career guidance practitioner’s previous education and student career choice and learning for working life in general education. Guidance plays a decisive role in the major decisions that individuals have to take throughout their lives. In Latvia the most often career guidance are implemented by school teacher - career counselor, career counselor, classroom teacher, in some cases the deputy director, school librarian. Lack of common vision to competencies, necessary for career guidance, lead’s to different specialist’s involvement in career guidance implementation. Scientific and empirically tested evidences of special training in career guidance and counseling benefits still needed. Empirical data were collected through student self-assessment questionnaires (n=1013) and analysis of group (n=633) and individual (n=699) counseling evaluation reports. 18 counselors were involved in the study. Data collected in the period from September, 2012 till May, 2013. Results of the study show that career guidance practitioners with career counsellors qualification act effectively than practitioners without special training in guidance. Correlation analysis between career guidance practitioner’s previous education and students' comprehension about their career choice show positive correlation – Spearman’s rho = 0.624. This means that the higher career counselor’s qualification is facilitative factor of student’s comprehension about their career choice.