The Model of Free Career Choice: The Role of Autonomous Career Motivation and Protective and Risk Factors in Career Development of Adolescents

The FreeCareerChoice project is aimed at examining the career decision process during adolescence. Theories of career choice and development generally do not deal with a wide range of protective and risk factors that affect the freedom to choose an occupation, nor do they devote themselves to the motivational processes that drive young people to decide on their occupation. As part of this project, we propose a Model of free career decision-making in which we emphasize the role of protective and risk factors and autonomous career motivation in the professional development of adolescents. We believe that protective and risk factors and autonomous career motivation, along with professional maturity, affect the quality of career choice and, consequently, professional outcomes. Primary and secondary school students aged 11 to 19 will participate in the research. The three basic research goals are (1) operationalization of the construct of autonomous career motivation, (2) verification of the role of autonomous career motivation and protective and risk factors in the model of free career decision-making, and (3) upgrading of the online professional guidance system Career Path and evaluation of its effectiveness. The project includes three independent quantitative studies (cross-sectional and longitudinal research and a quasi-experiment) and several smaller qualitative studies. In addition to scientific publications and dissemination, the research results will also include an upgrade of the Career Path professional guidance system, which will be free and publicly available to all users.