From Leaving CertiFiCate to Leaving SChooL a Longitudinal Study ...

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From Leaving Certificate to Leaving School
She [guidance counsellor] always has letters and prospectuses coming
in for people. She stacks them outside her room so that if we
want them we can take them … She does a newsletter of the breaking
news, you know, the kind of most up to date, you know, changes
in courses and that’s really good. (Belmore Street, girls’ school,
mixed intake)
Aptitude Testing
Many students felt that they benefitted from the aptitude tests carried out
in career guidance class. Students in Argyle Street liked that their guidance
counsellor had provided tests and talked through their interests and
their likely results in the Leaving Certificate:
We all did like an aptitude test, like a test that shows you what kind
of job area you’d be best suited to by choosing options and stuff.
And we’d discuss which one you came out highest in and what you
wanted to get, how many points you wanted to get, and how many
points your course needs and just your general subject level. (Argyle
Street, coed school, mixed intake)
Other students in Dawes Point found it helpful that their guidance counsellor
worked through their interests and hobbies and provided aptitude
and IQ tests in order to find out what courses might interest them:
We had a thing like last year it took the whole day, it was like an
exam but it was testing you in your computer skills.
IQ test … Yeah, they ask you a load of questions and it comes up
with what job would mostly suit you and that. (Dawes Point, boys’
school, working-class intake)
Not all students were equally positive, however, since some students in
Fig Lane felt that the aptitude test ‘states the obvious’ and was not of any
real help to them in making their decisions:
Oh, Centigrade, yeah, we did something this year to see what we are
interested in just to help us.
Interviewer: Was it any use?
Yeah …