OECD-Pisa data: the importance of the 'career counsellor' in schools emerges

Is it useful for schools to make an effort to support students in making choices regarding their future study and career paths? In a recent study, published in the academic journal Education Economics, we attempted to answer this question by analysing 2018 OECD Pisa data. The answer is affirmative: in (high) schools that have a 'vocational guidance counselor' in-house, students have higher study aspirations, motivation levels and even better academic results. But let us go in order.

The OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) survey is conducted every three years on a representative sample of 15-year-old students in more than 70 countries worldwide. In Italy, most of them attend the second grade of secondary school. In addition to students' responses to a standardised test on three subject areas (reading, mathematics and science), the survey collects a considerable amount of information from parents, teachers and school leaders. Among these, there are a number of indicators describing the presence - or absence - of a career guidance practitioner within the school. This figure performs a variety of functions, such as providing information on post-secondary study paths, organising the presentation of vocational activities at school, conducting mentoring sessions and personalised guidance. We wondered whether the presence of this figure in schools was associated with different levels of aspiration, motivation and academic performance of the students attending them. The Pisa database, in fact, contains indicators measuring these dimensions, and thus provides an opportunity for an exploration of this question based on data analysis. Specifically, in our study we used data on over 188,000 students, grouped in over 7,700 schools from 29 countries.

A first piece of evidence concerns the strong heterogeneity of career guidance practice: there are countries where almost all schools had a career guidance practitioner in-house (in 2018) (Portugal, Spain, Slovakia and Finland), and others where the proportion of schools with this figure is much lower (e.g. Greece and Hungary). The case of Italy, where this figure did not exist at all, is interesting. Note that the question used to construct the variable of interest does not concern the provision of career or counselling services, but the presence of a person (not necessarily a teacher) with such a specific dedicated role. For the analysis of the data, a statistical technique known as Propensity Score Matching was used. The intuition is to compare the results of students who are similar to each other (in terms of individual characteristics: gender, citizenship, socio-economic level of the family, etc.), who attend schools that are similar to each other (in terms of size, city vs. country location, average socio-economic level, etc.) and who differ only in the presence or absence, within the school, of a 'professional advisor'. The results of the statistical comparison between these two student populations make it possible to understand whether this professional figure makes a difference, i.e. whether students in schools with this figure perform better than other (similar) schools that do not have one. In conducting the analysis, we divided the results by different percentiles of the students' socio-economic level distribution. To do this, we used an indicator calculated by the OECD and called Escs (Economic, Social and Cultural Status), which considers the level of education of parents, their profession, and the possession of cultural assets at home.

The aim is to test whether the effect of the career counsellor is heterogeneous for different groups of students (e.g. the most socio-economically advantaged vs. the most disadvantaged). The results of the study are interesting. While there is no statistically significant correlation for the most advantaged group of students (higher percentiles of the Escs distribution), there is a significant and positive correlation for the most disadvantaged students. In other words, it appears that the presence of a career counsellor can positively contribute to improving the aspirations, motivation and academic performance of students who start with a greater socio-economic disadvantage. This sounds like good news: such a professional figure can act to reduce starting gaps and foster greater equality of opportunity for all students.

Why are these results observed? The available data do not allow us to fully explore the mechanisms underlying the relationships described above. There are, however, two possible explanations that seem intuitive and reasonable. The first is that career counsellors play a role in providing information (on future training and career opportunities) to students who do not receive this kind of introduction to reality from their families. The second is that these figures also act as accompaniment, support and guidance for students who start from more fragile initial situations: this element would also explain why there is a positive effect on school performance, which is not the primary objective of the action of these professional figures.