A career education program for early childhood youth: Development and initial evaluation

Fostering occupational knowledge during early childhood could help build a foundation for more sophisticated future knowledge of the world of work. Thus, we developed and initially evaluated the effectiveness of a career education program designed to promote occupational knowledge of kindergarten children. Participants were 133 Italian kindergarten children with a mean age of 4.62 years (SD = 0.47) who were randomly assigned to an experimental or control group. Results indicated that, compared to the control group, the experimental group experienced a significantly greater overall increase in occupational knowledge after the intervention. Results of social validity measures indicated that parents and teachers of the experimental group perceived the intervention very favorably in terms of its goals, acceptability and usability of the procedures, and outcomes. The study results provide initial support for the potential of the career education program to promote understanding of the world of work and occupations in early childhood.