Effectiveness of Non-Formal Education Program to Enhance Career Planning Abilities of Lower Secondary School Students

The 3Ds Career Planning Program is a sequential learning activity consisting of three stages: Diagnosing (8 activities), Designing (9 activities), and Doing (2 activities). These stages help students determine their future careers by exploring themselves and the world of careers, creating paths to desired jobs, and putting their plans into action. The purpose of this research is to study the effectiveness of this non-formal education program in improving lower secondary school students’ career planning abilities at Angthong Patthamarot Witthayakhom School. Twenty lower secondary school students volunteered to join the program. The 3Ds career planning instruments, which included questionnaires, tests, and reflection notes, were used to collect data. The findings indicate that the 3Ds Career Planning Program effectively improves students’ career planning abilities overall. Learning outcomes were higher than 80%, and the overall career planning ability level was significantly higher (Pre-M = 2.38, S.D. = 0.96; Post-M = 4.37, S.D = 0.64). Students’ career planning journals showed three levels of planning and implementation abilities: high, medium, and low. Moreover, the journals provided insights into several areas of learning reflection towards career planning: awareness of the importance of career planning, benefits of career planning, career decision-making and plans, feelings of plan accomplishment, and application to daily life.