The Happenstance Learning Theory

an article by John D Krumboltz (Stanford University) published in Journal of Career Assessment Volume 17 Number 2 (2009)


Abstract

What-you-should-be-when-you-grow-up need not and should not be planned in advance. Instead career counsellors should teach their clients the importance of engaging in a variety of interesting and beneficial activities, ascertaining their reactions, remaining alert to alternative opportunities, and learning skills for succeeding in each new activity.

Four propositions:

1. The goal of career counselling is to help clients learn to take actions to achieve more satisfying career and personal lives – not to make a single career decision.
2. Assessments are used to stimulate learning, not to match personal characteristics with occupational characteristics.
3. Clients learn to engage in exploratory actions as a way of generating beneficial unplanned events.
4. The success of counseling is assessed by what the client accomplishes in the real world outside the counselling session.

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