First Survey of High School Students' Needs for Labor Market Information in Career Decision-Making. Human Factors in Technology Research Group Working Paper.

This survey involving some 165 students from California's Berkeley High School was conducted to explore the requirements for the design of a labor market information system for a large metropolitan area. The students who were surveyed gave the following information: (1) The majority of the students wanted to know more about their chosen field, (2) Only about half of the students had ever talked with counselors about their future careers, (3) Slightly more than half of the students had read about jobs in career pamphlets and books obtained primarily from the city library, (4) As to the content of information, the largest number of students wanted primarily information on the training and education needed for jobs, (5) Students overwhelmingly endorsed direct contact with the world of work as a means of learning about it, (6) Most of those who had made career choices made them on the basis of courses taken or personal contact with people in the occupations, (7) Most of the students surveyed chose white collar occupations, and (8) Most believed that their mothers more than their fathers wanted them to choose a certain career. The students sampled were not representative of the student body in a strictly statistical sense and so their views do not necessarily hold for the student body. (SN)