Branch Network

What decision-making entails

A decision is the process of choosing a direction of activity among a number of alternatives (Thoresen and Mehrens, 1967). When making their final decisions, students find themselves in a critical time period, adolescence, which is typified by rapid and sudden changes in their mental, psycho-emotional and social development. 

Decision-making requires clear incentives, goal setting, emotional maturity, self-knowledge, critical thinking and intellectual maturity. But what could be the goal and incentives of a teenager?

The incentives of teenagers

The personal incentives (goal mapping) of teenagers may be:

  • Internal – Stemming from their own desires, and totally guiding their behaviour and choices.
  • External – Stemming from other people’s desires and affecting their final decisions to a great extent.
  • Conscious – Related to their judgement.
  • Unconscious – Usually external and stemming from the influence of third parties.

Incentives play an important role in teenagers’ career choices:

  • When teenagers are able to identify and defend them, these incentives lead to a positive professional path, even if they are not always associated with their ultimate career choice.
  • Their impact on the teenagers’ career choice depends on their intensity and strength (i.e. whether the incentives are indifferent to them,, moderate, weak, strong or very strong),
  • Incentives are tied to factors such as the work conditions, the pay, the chances of success or failure, the risk, etc.

Goal setting

Teenagers’ goals:

  • Depend on their incentives.
  • Are based on the positive or negative interactions they experience within their environment.
  • Are formulated based on previous experiences.
  • Are continuously re-shaped, depending on the teenagers’ stage of development.
  • Are established when teenagers mature.
  • Are solidified over time.

The tips were compiled by Vicki Pavlidi, Special Educator (MA), Educational Psychologist (MSc, HCPC/UK) and Career Counsellor (MA).

 

For the proper operation of our website www.alpha.gr, we are required to use cookies. Subject to your consent, we will use additional cookies to improve the browsing experience, of our website, to obtain performance and functionality analytics and provide advertising tailored to your needs. If you agree to the use of all additional cookies, select “ACCEPT”. If you do not wish the additional cookies to be installed, select “DECLINE” or be informed about our Cookie Policy as well as the different types of cookies, and declare or change your preferences (except for technically essential cookies, which cannot be deactivated), by clicking on “Cookie Settings”.