A structured career intervention program for academically challenged students

A study was carried out to test the effects of a 2-week structured intervention program on academically challenged students’ career development. A quasi-experimental study was designed using pre-tests, post-tests, and a control group approach to examine the effects of the intervention program. Data were collected from both the experimental and control groups. The test was carried out on eight schools in the state of Kedah in Malaysia. Eight school counselors were trained to facilitate the assignment to the experimental groups and to collect data. A total number of 335 students with low academic achievement participated in this study. This number included male (43.6 %) and female (56.4 %) students who were aged 15–16 and a half. Modes of measurement used consisted of a career planning inventory (measuring career planning skills), an academic learning motivation scale (measuring attitude toward academic learning), and an academic study skills test (measuring academic study competencies). Analysis was performed using t-tests and the multivariate analysis of variance to examine the differences in the mean scores. The results show that the sample’s career academic score improved significantly from the pre-test to the post-test. A simple regression analysis was also performed to see the effect of the intervention program on the three dependent variables, which revealed that the career intervention program has positive and significant effects on the three variables. However, further studies on the career program for academically challenged students are highly recommended to support the present study.