The PIC Model

Prof. Itamar Gati

The Hebrew University Jerusalem

Today’s presentation will present (and try to justify) the claim that

Career counseling may be viewed as decision counseling, which aims at facilitating the clients' decision-making process, and promoting better career decisions.

How?

By presenting the PIC model (Prescreening, In-depth exploration and Choice), highlighting the ways it addresses the shortcomings of the theoretical approaches which dominate the career-guidance field

By demonstrating PIC’s clinical applicability by presenting MBCD - an Internet-based career guidance system based on the model’s rationale

By presenting research which examined the theoretical validity and practical effectiveness of the PIC model and MBCD for facilitating clients' career decision-making.

Part 1The PIC Model: Rationale and Stages

Or: Who needs another model?

Theoretical approaches dominating the field of career decision-making

Career development theories -- focus on the developmental circumstances in which decisions are made and the effects of these changes on career decisions

Person-Environment Fit approach --

focuses on the congruence between individuals' characteristics and the characteristics of an occupation

The problem: Lack of reference to the essence of the decision-making process

P-E Fit approach – focus mainly on the outcomes of the decision-making process

Career development theories focus on the developmental changes that occur before and between decision tasks

the challenge is to design a systematic procedure that can facilitate the process of locating the congruent occupational alternatives in specific situations requiring choices along the developmental continuum

Career Decision-Making in the 21th Century

Today, career decision-making is a multi-decisional, un-predictable, dynamic, and life-lasting process with numerous transitions; thus, individuals should be trained as autonomous decision-makers (while P-E Fit models typically focus on a static match)

Today, cultural emphasis on self-fulfilment and personal satisfaction increases individuals' awareness to changes in their preferences over time (while P-E fit models make a one-time classification of the individual into one or more personality types – a snap-shot)

Choosing a Career as a Decision-Making Process: Unique Features

Amount of Information: Often large N of alternatives Large N of considerations and factors Within-occupation variance Practically unlimited

Quality of Information Soft, subjective Fuzzy Inaccurate or biased

Choosing a Career as a Decision-Making Process: Unique Features (Cont.)

Uncertainty about the individual’s future preferences about future career options unpredictable changes and opportunities choice implementation

Non-cognitive Factors emotional and personality-related factors necessity for compromise actual or perceived social barriers and biases

CDM Difficulties of 15,000 surfers on the Future Directions website (Gati & Meyers, 2003)

• Are you experiencing difficulties in making your career decision?

Implications and Conclusion

Many factors contribute to the complexity of the career decision-making process, and to the difficulties involved

Decision-making models can be adapted to facilitate career decision-making

Career counseling may be viewed as decision counseling, which aims at facilitating the clients' decision-making process and promoting better career decisions.

Among the salient difficulties is “lack of information about the career decision-making process” (4)

The Distribution of the Three Levels of Difficulties (negligible, moderate, salient difficulty) in the Ten Difficulty Categories and Four Groups (N = 6192; H-Hebrew, E-English, p-paper and pencil, I-Internet)

0%

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H H E E H H E E H H E E H H E E H H E E H H E E H H E E H H E E H H E E H H E E

p I p I p I p I p I p I p I p I p I p I p I p I p I p I p I p I p I p I p I p I

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

salient difficulty moderate difficulty no difficulty

Types of decision-making models 1- Normative models:

Dominated decision theories for many decades

Aim at developing procedures for making optimal choices, based on the assumption that human beings are rational decision-makers

Empirical evidence demonstrates that this assumption typically does not hold, especially when the number of potential alternatives is large

Thus, normative models are overly rational, too abstract and too quantitative for everyday decisions as well as for decision counseling

Types of decision-making models 2- Descriptive models:

Investigate the ways people actually make decisions; reveal biases, inconsistencies and limited rationality, leading to less than optimal decisions.

Because descriptive models cannot serve as a reference point for justifiable decisions, they cannot be used as a basis for adequate decision-guidance.

Types of decision-making models 3- Prescriptive decision models:

Aim at outlining a framework for making better decisions, while acknowledging human limitations

Correspond with the intuitive ways individuals make decisions

In the context of career decision making, aim at providing a framework for a systematic process for making better career decisions, instead of striving for rational ones

Prescriptive models should:

be intuitively appealing be feasible – compatible with cognitive and

material limitations avoid complicated calculations on the one hand,

and fuzzy abstraction on the other strive for maximal simplification but at the same

time minimize the potential loss resulting from a non-comprehensive search process

offer multi-level complexity

Our proposal - The PIC Model Prescreening, In-depth exploration, Choice (Gati & Asher, 2001)

PIC is a prescriptive model designed to possess these desirable features by offering a systematic framework for career-decision making

Facilitates the decision-making process by separating it into three distinct stages:

- Prescreening

- In-depth exploration

- Choice

The PIC Model

Encompasses the entire career-decision making process

Clients can begin the process from any of the stages according to their progress in the decision-making process

Is a dynamic and flexible decision process Encourages clients to move back and forth

between the stages in order to rethink and reinforce their previous responses

Before Beginning the Decision-Making Process: Assessing and Increasing the Client’s Readiness

Evaluating the client’s general level of career indecision

Examining his or her specific difficulties in reaching a decision

Assessing career choice anxiety

Identifying dysfunctional beliefs

Explaining the steps of the decision-making process to the client

Prescreening

Goal: Locating a small set (about 7) of promising alternatives that deserve further, in-depth exploration

Method: Sequential Elimination (based on the elimination-by-aspects strategy - Tversky, 1972, which was shown to be compatible with the ways people actually make decisions)

Outcome: A list of verified promising alternatives worth further, in-depth exploration

Locating and prioritizing aspects or factors

Explicate the within-factor preferences of the most important factor not yet considered

Eliminate incompatible alternatives

Too many promising alternatives?

This is the recommended list of occupations

worth further, in-depth exploration

yes

no

Steps in Sequential Elimination

Career-Related Aspects

The search for promising career alternatives is based on individuals' preferences in career-related aspects -- all variables that can be used to characterize either individuals' preferences and abilities or career alternatives

The use of a large set of career-related aspects provides a more accurate description of both preferences and occupations, thus leading to a better person-environment fit

1) Selecting the relevant aspects to be used in the search

it is impractical to consider all possible aspects; hence, the individual must choose a subset of aspects to focus on

The list should include objective constraints (e.g., disability), personal competencies (e.g., creativity, technical skills), and core personal preferences

2) Ranking the aspects by importance

The sequential elimination process begins with the most important aspect, continues with the aspect second in importance, and so on, until the list of remaining alternatives is short enough (i.e., 7 or less)

Ranking is necessary in order to avoid stopping the search before the most important aspects have been considered

3) Defining the range of acceptable levels for the more important aspects

Within aspect preferences: descriptive labels are used to represent within-aspect qualitative variations

The individuals’ preferred level is labeled the optimal level. Additional levels, which are less desirable but still acceptable, are labeled acceptable levels

The choice of a compromise range explicitly guides individuals to consider compromise, encouraging a more realistic perspective

4) Comparison of individuals’ range of acceptable levels with the alternatives characteristic levels

Occupations are also characterised by a range of levels ( within-occupation variations)

For each aspect, the characteristics of all potential alternatives are compared with the individual’s preferences, and incompatible alternatives are eliminated

The process is repeated for the remaining aspects (in descending order of importance) until the number of remaining “promising” alternatives is manageable.

A Schematic Presentation of theSequential Elimination Process (within aspects, across alternatives)

Potential Alternatives

1 2 3 4 . . . . N

Aspects

a (most important)

b (second in

importance)

c

.

n Promising Alternatives

Sequential elimination is a non-compensatory decision strategy

even a small gap between the individual's preferred levels and the characteristics of the occupation is enough to eliminate an alternative

an advantage in one attribute cannot compensate for a disadvantage in another (indeed, in important decisions such as career decisions, not all disadvantages can be compensated for)

(a) Inclusion (b) Partial Overlap (c) No Overlap (d) Almost Overlap

ar

ar

arcl

cl

cl

cl

ar

LA-L8

Four Examples of a within-aspect compatibility test: A comparison between the Acceptable Range for the individual (ar), and the Characteristic levels of an alternative (cl)

Sensitivity Analysis

A potentially suitable alternative might be eliminated because of a slight mismatch in a single aspect – therefore, there is a need for a "safety check“; reexamining the implications of changes in the individual's inputs upon the outcome – the list of "promising" career options: Rethinking the range of acceptable levels reported Understanding why certain alternatives considered

intuitively appealing before the systematic search were eliminated

Locating alternatives that were discarded due to only a small discrepancy in a single aspect and considering compromise

The Five Steps of the Prescreening Stage

List of Promising Alternatives

(b) Ranking Aspects by Importance

(a) Selecting Relevant Aspects

(c) Defining the Range of Acceptable Levels for the Most Important Aspect Not Yet Considered

(e) Sensitivity Analysis

Initial List of Potential Alternatives

Is the list of remaining

occupations too long?

Yes

(d) Comparing the Individual’s Range of Acceptable Levels with the Characteristic Levels of the Alternatives: Eliminating Incompatible Alternatives

No

LA-L7b

In-depth exploration

Goal: Locating alternatives that are not only promising, but suitable for the individual.

Method: “zoom in" on one promising alternative at a time, collecting additional, comprehensive information about it: Is the occupation INDEED suitable for me?

verifying compatibility with one’s preferences in the most important aspects

considering compatibility within the less important aspects

considering willingness to meet the occupation’s requirements

Am I suitable for the occupation? probability of actualization

fit with the core aspects of the occupation

Outcome: A few most suitable alternatives (about 3-4)

Core Aspects

While many aspects are required to describe any career option, usually only a few of them are crucial for the characterization of a particular occupation.

core aspects significantly contribute to the prediction of occupational-choice satisfaction

A Suitability Test for a promising Alternative during the In-depth Exploration Stage

Confirming the fit to the core aspects of the

alternative

Considering compatibility with preferences in the

less important aspects as well

Verifying compatibility with preferences in the

most important aspects

Examining probability of actualization

Unsuitable Alternative

Suitable Alternative

Do I fit the alternative?

Does the alternative suit

me?

Promising Alternative

LA-L10

A Schematic Presentation of the In-depth Exploration Stage (within-alternative, across aspects)

Promising AlternativesPromising Alternatives1 2 3 4 5 6

Suitable Suitable AlternativesAlternatives

LA-L9

2 4 5

Choice

Goal: To choose the most suitable alternative and rank-order additional, second-best alternatives

Method: A detailed, refined comparison among the suitable alternatives,

focusing on the differences among them

pinpointing the most suitable alternative

is it likely that I can actualize it? if not: selecting second-best alternative(s)

if yes: am I confident in my choice? if not: Return to In-depth exploration stage

if yes: Done!

Outcome: An alternative or a rank-order of alternatives

Comparing and evaluating the suitable alternatives

The comparison can now be based on a normative-compensatory model, aimed at locating the optimal alternative, because: the number of alternatives under

consideration is small it is possible to evaluate each alternative across all aspects

the considered alternatives are all acceptable, thus the compromises involved in a trade-off are more subtle

The Cancellation Operation (based on the search for dominance model, Montgomery, 1989)

Attributes that the individual perceives as advantageous and as related to one another are grouped and used to counterbalance an advantage of the other alternative on a different combination of attributes, which are equivalent in desirability until the net advantages of one alternative will show that it is more suitable

A Schematic Presentation of the Choice Stage

Return to In-depth exploration stage

Compare the suitable alternatives and choose the most suitable one

Select second-best alternative(s)

No

No

Yes

No

Suitable Alternatives

Done!

Am I confident with my choice?

Is there only one suitable alternative?

Is its actualization certain?

Yes

Yes

The choice is made

Most suitable alternative identified

LA-L11

CriterionStage

Direction of comparison

PrescreeningHorizontal: within aspect, across alternatives

In-depthsVertical: within alternative, across aspects

choiceDepends on the number of suitable alternatives and the type of model used for the search

FocusPrescreeningWhat doesn’t fit the preferences?

In-depthsVerifying degree of match

choiceThe optimal level

Combining preferences and abilities

PrescreeningFocus on preferences

In-depthsFocus on preferences and abilities

choiceFocus on preferences and abilities

Criterion-

continued

Stage

CompromisePrescreeningExtending range of acceptable levels in the most important aspects

In-depthsComprehensive examination, increasing odds for implementation

choiceDecreasing weight of certain aspects, willingness to prioritize also second-best alternatives

Dealing with uncertainty

PrescreeningExtending range of acceptable levels (taken into consideration the possibility for change in preferences in the future)

In-depthsUsing information for reducing insecurity regarding the match among the individual and the alternative

choiceIdentifying second-best alternatives if implementation of the chosen alternative is uncertain

PIC versus P-E Fit Approaches

Common Feature: The goal is to maximize the fit between the individual and work

environment.

Differences: P-E Fit mainly focuses on the outcome, whereas PIC also

focuses on the process. Screening which is based on aspects (rather than on interests or

needs only) is “richer” and more flexible. P-E Fit implies a single-step prescreening (without explicating

additional steps), whereas PIC prescribes a multi-step, systematic, and interactive process.

The notion of core aspects yields a promise for improving congruence.

PIC versus Normative Decision Theory

Common Feature: The choice is the outcome of a systematic, analytic

decision process.

Differences: “Bounded Rationality” in PIC substitutes Rationality in

NDT. PIC is less quantitative (but still permits a structured

search during prescreening). PIC is less complex and more natural. PIC is especially useful in cases where N of potential

alternatives is large

To sum up: The PIC model

The search for suitable alternatives is based on:

a wide set of career-related aspects rather than only vocational interests,

A range of levels to represent both the individual's preferences and the occupations

Includes a reexamination of one's input

therefore the P-E fit resulting from it should lead to greater career-associated well-being than that based on a single-step-based person-occupation match.

Summary (Continued)

The PIC model turns the complex process of career choice into a sequence of well-defined tasks

Career-guidance based on the PIC model allows the deliberating client to play not only an active role, but a leading one in the decision-process

The PIC model deals with career choice from a cognitive point of view, however, some of the emotional problems and indecisiveness in choosing a career may be attributed to the lack of a framework for approaching career decision making - provided by PIC