Disclaimer:
Please be aware that the content herein has not been peer reviewed. It consists of personal reflections, insights, and learnings of the contributor(s). It may not be exhaustive, nor does it aim to be authoritative knowledge.
Title
Please provide a name for your action learning plan.
Experimenting with chat in Career counselling
Challenge statement
Challenge type: If you are working on multiple challenges, please indicate if this is your "big bet" or "exploratory" challenge.
Please note: we ask you to only submit a maximum of 3 challenges - 1x Big Bet, 2x Exploratory. Each challenge must be submitted individually.
EXPLORATORY
Challenge statement: What is your challenge? (Please answer in specific terms: "Our challenge is that...”.)
Our challenge is addressing the confusion youth face while making their career choices. Most young people in Jordan choose market-saturated degrees because of the society's perception of these professions.
Background: What is the history of your challenge? What is causing or driving it? Who is involved? How does the current situation look like? What undesired effects does it produce?
Jordan relies upon its limited natural resource base and a pool of highly skilled individuals, mostly youth, whose exceptional talents are crucial in generating substantial revenue for the country. Despite this and based on the International Labor Organization (ILO), 42.2% of youth aged 20-24 years are unemployed.
Jordan faces persistent economic challenges, including high levels of unemployment, low wages, and high poverty rates. Jordan's location in a volatile region has resulted in significant regional political instability, conflicts in neighbouring countries, and many refugees and displaced persons. The Country has significant social inequalities, including gender, disability, and socio-economic status. These inequalities can limit access to education, healthcare, and other basic services, exacerbating vulnerabilities for already marginalised groups. Jordan also faces significant political challenges, including issues related to corruption, democratic governance, and human rights.
In 2022, UNDP Jordan worked on an e-learning platform called Digi-Maharat which was meant to offer online digital skills courses. However, the platform did not launch officially, and only four courses were developed. The CO approached the Lab to support which through previous exploration activities had found that youth find it challenging to decide what to do for a living and that's where we started exploring the idea of including an online chatbot that provides career counseling for youth in Arabic. Before doing so, we wanted to learn more about the use of chat in career counseling by conducting a small experiment.
Quantitative evidence: What (official) data sources do you have on this challenge that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge? You can add text, a link, or a picture.
Qualitative evidence: What weak signals have you recently spotted that characterizes its urgency? Please provide qualitative information that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge. You can add text, a link, or a picture.
Value proposition: What added value or unique value proposition is your Accelerator Lab bringing to solving this challenge? Why is it your Lab that needs to work on this challenge and not other actors within UNDP, other stakeholders in the country respectively? Why is it worth investing resources to this challenge?
The Accelerator Lab's methodology emphasizes testing solutions before scaling them. To this end, we did research and surveys, followed by an experiment to compare different approaches to career counseling and guidance, including chat, phone calls, and in-person sessions.
Short “tweet” summary: We would like to tweet what you are working on, can you summarize your challenge in a maximum of 280 characters?
The Accelerator Lab in Jordan is researching and experimenting with Career counseling
Partners
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the partner:
UNDP livelihoods team
What sector does our partner belong to?
United Nations
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
The livelihoods team requested our support before engaging with revitalizing the Digi- Maharat platform. So we did our research and tested the use of chat in career counseling.
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
No
Learning questions
Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?
How does online career counselling help youth make more informed career decisions?
To what stage(s) in the learning cycle does your learning question relate?
Explore, Test
Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
A survey was conducted via social media to understand how young individuals in Jordan make their career choices. Targeting people aged 18 to 25, the survey gathered demographic information, educational and employment status, technology usage, and career aspirations. The survey was followed with an experiment to compare various types of career counseling and guidance, including chat, phone calls, and in-person sessions. The chat experience has the potential to be developed into an online chatbot, utilizing content from professional Jordanian and Arab career counselors.
Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
We do not have information on youth experience with the Ministry of Labour's counselling services. We do not have information on the youth's capacity to interact with chatbots and their impressions of dealing with a bot.
Closing
Early leads to grow: Think about the possible grow phase for this challenge - who might benefit from your work on this challenge or who might be the champions in your country that you should inform or collaborate with early on to help you grow this challenge?
Further research should be done on this topic.
END OF ACTION LEARNING PLAN: Thank you! The form saves automatically and your submission has been recorded. You may now exit this window.
Observations from the Experiment and Follow-up Interviews:
1. Despite participants’ preference for in-person sessions, a significant number did not attend
these meetings. This highlights a potential barrier in accessing face-to-face counseling.
2. Feedback frequently centered on the counselor’s skills, suggesting that interpersonal abilities are crucial for effective career counseling.
3. All participants acknowledged the benefits of discussing their career paths with someone and
expressed interest in further sessions.
4. Many were inclined to sign up due to the UNDP’s involvement, indicating that the association
with a reputable organization enhances participant engagement.
5. A few individuals reported reluctance to participate based on their personal experiences,
underscoring the need for continuous improvement in session delivery.
Conclusion:
The Accelerator Lab’s experiment on career counseling modalities compared remote sessions, such as chat, with traditional in-person counseling. While the hypothesis that chat-based counseling could match the effectiveness of face-to-face sessions was partially supported, the research revealed that most participants still preferred in-person sessions. Face-to-face counseling was found to be the most effective in terms of emotional connection, engagement, and content retention. Although chat sessions allowed for freer expression and showed potential as a viable alternative in specific contexts, they were generally seen as secondary to the natural rapport and effectiveness of in-person interactions.
https://www.undp.org/jordan/publications/experimenting-career-counseling-jordan-lab
1No poverty
4Quality education
8Decent work and economic growth
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