The Cognitive Information Processing (CIP) Approach to Career Development and Services

Cognitive Information Processing (CIP) was developed around 1971 by Peterson, Sampson, Reardon, and Lenz at the University of Florida.

Who are these people?

Dr Gary W. Peterson Professor Emeritus. Biologist turned licensed psychologist and counsellor. Chief interests: career problem solving and decision making, personality measurement and assessment, and career assessment.

Dr Robert Reardon Professor Emeritus. Social Studies graduate turned to counselling and guidance. Chief interests: educational psychology and learning systems

Dr James P. Sampson Professor of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems. Psychologist turned career counsellor Chief interests: standards of practice and ethical codes related to the design and use of computer applications in counselling.

Dr Janet Gale Lenz Program Director for Instruction, Research, & Evaluation Sociologist turned career development expert. Chief interests: counselling & human systems, with an emphasis on training career counsellors.

Cognitive Information Processing (CIP) At the heart of this theory is the idea that computers mimic the way we process information.

The sound byte: Career decision making is like a recipe: there are several ingredients that are put together in order to get an end product.

Cognitive Information Processing Theory posits that we solve career problems and make decisions by taking into account two things: CONTENT. This includes self-knowledge, occupational knowledge, decision-making skills, and metacognitions (thinking!). PROCESS. Working through the CASVE cycle: communication, analysis, synthesis, valuing, and execution.  

Content can be summarised as a pyramid. Guide to Career Decision Making/Choosing a Major, Occupation or Job Clients choose where to start.

Process can be summarised by this flow diagram Model Decision Making Process

CIP theory is comparable to cognitive therapy as issues/challenges are said to arise from dysfunctional thinking. CIP counsellors rectify faulty behaviour and emotions by cognitive restructuring.

In short: CIP approach uses self-knowledge, options knowledge, communication, analysis, synthesis, valuing, execution, and executive processing as well as the assumptions, attitudes, behaviours, beliefs, feelings, plans, and/or strategies related to career problem solving and decision making and puts them all together when providing career counselling services.

There are 7 key elements to the Cognitive Information Processing Approach

#1 Screen Individuals for Career Decision Making Readiness Before Delivering Services Career decision problem making comes in different guises, including issues with: Vocational maturity (Super, 1974; Crites, 1996) Career adaptability (Super, 1983; Savickas, 1994) Vocational identity (Holland, 1997) Career beliefs (Krumboltz, 1983) Dysfunctional career thinking (Sampson et al., 1998; Peterson, et al., 2002).

If the client’s needs aren’t properly identified, correct support can’t be offered. In order to identify the client’s needs: Conduct an interview Use the Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI) (Sampson et al., 1996a) This results in an individual learning plan (ILP), carefully tailored to the client’s needs

About The Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI) Developed to measure dysfunctional career thoughts Has 48 CTI items that may be completed in 7 to 15 minutes Is scored in 5 to 8 minutes Comes with an accompanying workbook, Improving Your Career Thoughts: A Workbook for the Career Thoughts Inventory

Career Thoughts Inventory construct scores include: Decision-Making Confusion (DMC) issues with the decision making process as a result of disabling emotions and/or a lack of understanding about the process itself. The Commitment Anxiety (CA) scale reflects the inability to make a commitment to a specific career choice, accompanied by generalized anxiety about the outcome of the decision making process. This anxiety perpetuates indecision. The External Conflict (EC) scale reflects the inability to balance the importance of one's own self-perceptions with the importance of input from significant others, resulting in a reluctance to assume responsibility for decision making.

The workbook is in 5 sections Identifying your total amount of negative career thoughts: the CTI total score. Identifying the nature of your negative career thoughts. Challenging and altering your negative career thoughts and taking action. Improving your ability to make good decisions. Making good use of support from other people

#2 Match Levels of Staff Assistance to Identified Individual Needs Three levels of service delivery are included in the CIP approach: Self-help, for those with a high level of readiness for decision-making Brief staff-assisted, for those with a moderate level of readiness for decision making Individual case-managed, for those with a low level of readiness for decision making

By sorting out who needs what type of help (service delivery) the CIP approach can limit expensive services (in terms of staff resources) to individuals with more extensive needs.

#3 Use Career Theory to Help Individuals Understand and Manage Career Decision Making In 1991, the team produced non-academic language handouts to make their theory intelligible to the general public. These are available online at the FSU Career Center's Module Sheets. There are 16 modules:

Module I: Working with the Career Center Module II: Making a Career Decision Module III: Exploring Your Interests, Values, & Skills

Module IV: Finding Career Information Module V: Matching Majors and Jobs Module VI: Understanding Job Forecasts

Module VII: Balancing Work and Leisure Module VIII: Maximizing Diversity Module IX: Planning a Career as a Woman

Module X: Emphasizing Strengths over Disabilities Module XI: Making a Career Transition Module XII: Get Experience!

Module XIII: Launching Your Job Campaign Module XIV: Careering Abroad & Cross Culturally Module XV: Going to Graduate School Module XVI: Choosing a Major

Modules look like this:

#4. Use the Career Resource Room and Internet Web Site with All Levels of Service Delivery As there are a lot of elements available, a properly set up career resource room will ensure that clients will see what they need to see. Among the set-up rules, they recommend: #1 A friendly, comfortable environment #2 Proper classification and labelling of resources #3 A clear path for users to follow #4 A FAQ to answer common questions #5 A helping hand from counsellors when and where needed

#5 Use Career Resources that are Appropriate for Diverse Individual Learners Resources to be available in various forms so that everyone can access them: Written at different levels of language Written in different languages Presented as large text or audio/video for the blind/deaf

#6. Use Staff Teamwork in Delivering Services to Individuals The success of CPI relies on the individual learning plan (ILP), not on an individual counsellor. This gives the clients two benefits: The client can consult any counsellor The client decides how quickly he or she will use available resources and services.

#7 Provide Common Staff Training for Delivering Resources and Services “Common training experiences among staff are needed to reduce the likelihood of inconsistent or disjointed service delivery when multiple staff serve one individual. Individuals may become confused and discouraged if some staff are unable to help them effectively use the resources and services included on their ILP.” (Sampson, et al, 2001)

Benefits of CPI

#1 It draws on a variety of resources, so it’s wide-ranging and flexible #2 It is tailored to individual clients #3 It sensitive to multi-cultural needs

#4 It is practical, working towards client sourced goals #5 The individual learning plan empowers the client #6 The individual learning plan allows for multi-counsellor guidance #7 The client need not know about the theory to benefit

Problems with CPI To be effective, counsellors have to develop rapport with clients - not easy in a busy school/job centre Although the test has been normed for adults, college and high school students in the US and tested rigorously, the workbook has not. There is no evidence at all that the workbook is effective. The workbook is written at 7.7 level, US college educated people

#1 problem with this theory: the human brain is nothing like a computer Computers use serial processing, meaning they complete one process before starting the next. People use parallel processing where some or all processes are involved in a cognitive task(s) at the same time. Computers are fixed in their processing approach and knowledge People ‘program’ themselves and are constantly adapting/evolving

Thinking is not a logical process nor is it simple Thinking is not a logical process nor is it simple. Issues we know about:

Inattentional blindness: not seeing when we are busy with attention-demanding tasks. (Gorilla at the basketball game) Cognitive capture: inattentional blindness caused by fixation on instrumentation. (Handphone users ignore clown on the unicycle) Hot cognition: where thinking is influenced by emotional state. (Wrong coffee and race)

Clustering illusion: where we see “streaks” or patterns where there are none (Lucky streaks) Heuristic bias/Availability bias: where one makes rules of thumb or stereotypical decisions on available information. (Man with who loves order and neatness: farmer or librarian) Correlation bias: where we believe correlation equals causation (Ashtrays cause cancer) Confirmation bias: where we give more weight to things that support our own beliefs (Wombs not brains)

#2 Studies don’t reflect reality Most laboratory studies are artificial and lack ecological validity. In a lab one chooses the best job/approach; in real life other motivations come to pass: friendship, politics, money, resource constraints etc

#3 Quick, dirty and temporary Cognitive therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy are empowering as they look at emotion and behaviour as controllable. However, their main limitation is that they are ‘quick and dirty’ fixes that don't always stick. (Corey, 2013, p298-300)