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New Canadians Career Quest Research:
REPORT CONTENTS - Research Report | Summary Table
Purpose
The purpose of this seven-month project is twofold:
- To conduct action-based research to assess the newcomers’ needs for career orientation, the relevant resources currently available in the community, as well as the most desirable means of delivering such a program.
- To develop a career orientation curriculum to address the needs identified, to pilot and evaluate it.
Objectives
The New Canadians Career Quest Team conducted a three-phase action research project on the career orientation needs of newcomers to Canada. Our objectives was to learn about the needs of newcomers and to develop, implement and evaluate a program to help service providers guide newcomers in making optimal career decisions. We hope that this project will help newcomers optimize the richness of skills they bring to Canada while considering opportunities that exist in this country.
Contents
The following lists the various components of the Research Report.
All links are in MSWord documents (.doc) format.
Research Report - Main report including table of contents
Appendices - Separate list of report appendices
Letter of Introduction 1 - Letter of introduction to the participants (Appendix A)
Consent Form - To be filled out by the participants (Appendix B)
Questionnaire - Participant "Needs Assessment Questionnaire" (Appendix C)
Letter of Introduction 2 - Project introduction letter (Appendix D)
Press Release - (Appendix F)
List of Contributors - (Appendix G)
ABOUT THE CURRICULUM - Summary Table
This curriculum has been created to meet the unique needs of newcomers. There are several components of this curriculum that reflect its purpose.
The following table summarizes what we have learned from the research and our approach to assisting newcomers in their career integration.
NCCQ Curriculum Research
| Needs we learned about |
How we addressed them |
| Better access to career information |
• Three modules
• Gradual learning - Starting from general information towards the more specific one
• Terminology possibly learned in an ESL context |
| Expanding the options for career integration |
• Module 2 - Introducing "clusters" of occupations rather than individual ones
• Learning about language, computer and occupational training requirements
• Learning about language, computer and occupational opportunities |
| Becoming familiar with career planning concept |
• All three modules
• Gradual learning
• Teaching the cultural meaning of career planning through the exploration of the Canadian context (changing economy, technology growth, types of employment) |
| Improving understanding of the Canadian labour market |
• Module 1
• Introducing the concept of labour market research
• Hands-on experience with Job Futures
• Hearing up-to-date information on global, national and local trends |
Learning about the value and prospects of own experience
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• Module 2 - Review different job descriptions of relevant occupations
• Have an informational interview with a successful immigrant
• Learn about educational, language, certification and technology requirements of an occupation |
Gain better understanding of own skills in the Canadian context
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• Module 1 - Self-assessment concept: Why, What and How to assess own situation
• Module 2 - Relate own experiences to those of others who were in a similar situation |
Create an individualized plan of career integration
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• Module 3 - Use of the "career path" exercise to create a path to desired occupation by combining different employment, training and licensing and certification options |
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