Aspects Related to Counselling and Guidance in Science Lessons Contexts

Choosing a profession is an important and complex process for each student. Basically, the quality of this process depends on the individual's entire existence, with implications on personal, social and professional levels. But the career planning involves, in turn, a series of related aspects: pedagogical knowledge, educational guidance, counselling and career guidance, etc. This cannot be done only in the special offices for pedagogical assistance or in tutoring classes. Within each disciplines, through valorising various pedagogical contents, teachers must envisage the fulfilment of specific objectives that target the area of counselling and career guidance. Starting from the mentioned premises, the paper aims to identify the extent to which the teaching approaches developed in Science subject contexts (Physics, Chemistry, Biology) contributes to the objectives related to career planning and counselling. In this respect, the paper presents an investigative demarche, considering a sample of 185 Romanian students from upper secondary level (11th and 12th grades) who were questioned concerning several issues to emphasize the skills / qualifications needed for specific professions, identifying strengths and weaknesses that define the student's personality, highlighting key-characteristics of different professions, etc. The processing of qualitative and quantitative data collected from the questionnaires allows us to formulate reliable conclusions about the role and contribution of Science subjects for students, with the view of taking relevant decisions and influencing the future career. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.