Elena V. Dekina

The article is aimed at analyzing and improving existing career guidance practices. Today, children are changing, the world of professions, society, professionally important qualities are undergoing changes, that leads to the need to justify, fill in new technologies for professional self-determination. The purpose of the article is the analysis of modern technologies of career guidance in adolescence and young age, the evaluation of the effectiveness of training programs for students to make a conscious choice of profession in the ever-increasing complexity of expanding living conditions. The authors note the importance of building up readiness for a conscious and independent construction of a personal educational and professional route, the active inclusion of students, their parents in the process of self-determination. The basic methods of career guidance are considered: informational, activating, developing, diagnostic and consulting. The target category of the study is students in grades 7–9. Research methods: theoretical (analysis of psychological and pedagogical literature), empirical (questioning, testing, formative experiment). The development of proposals for improving the system of modern career guidance is rather relevant. As a result of rethinking new approaches to career guidance, the authors focus on the training of specialists providing psychological and pedagogical support to students in the process of formation and implementation of the educational and professional route. The results of the study can be the basis for working out new instruments and the content of professional self-determination. The study meets the important challenge of the present – the creation of a system of professional self-determination of students and professional growth of specialists. The materials of the article can be used by bachelor students in psychological and pedagogical areas of training, researchers and practitioners dealing with career guidance issues, and for the organization of psychological assistance to students.