Providing Career Counseling for Collegiate Student-Athletes: A Learning Theory Approach

Abstract

Collegiate student-athletes present unique issues regarding career development. Career counselors who infuse the Learning Theory of Career Counseling (Krumboltz, 1996) into their work with collegiate student-athletes can help these clients learn new ways to explore career possibilities. By co-creating learning opportunities with student-athletes, counselors can help promote expansion of clients' interests, skills, beliefs, values, and personal qualities. Such growth can help members of this population deal with issues like identity foreclosure and social isolation en route to establishing a set of problem-solving and decision-making skills that will serve them well over the course of their lives.