Stimulating career planning reflection in students' works through an online intervention

Context: The transition from school to work requires adolescents to make significant career decisions during a phase of ongoing identity development. In Switzerland, vocational and academic pathways are well established, and career guidance is part of the school curriculum. Yet such guidance often focuses more on aligning students with available options than on fostering deeper self-reflection. Reflective self-awareness — the ability to critically examine one’s beliefs, goals, and influences — is key to enabling meaningful, informed career planning and long-term adaptability. Approach: This study evaluates a four-year intervention (2021–2025) involving 1,748 students from grades 9 to 11 in reflective tasks using the online platform www.digibe.ch. It offers selfdirected reflection tasks aimed at fostering reflective self-awareness in career planning. Using linear mixed-effects models, we analysed associations between task-induced self-reflection, task completion, and metacognitive outcomes—criticality, insight, and self-clarity— accounting for individual and class-level variance. Motivation was controlled for and later included as a moderator in follow-up analyses. Findings: Task-induced reflection was positively associated with criticality, insight, and selfclarity. Baseline dispositions strongly predicted follow-up outcomes. However, the number of tasks completed showed a complex relationship: motivated students benefited from completing more tasks, while less motivated students showed diminishing returns. Variation was mostly at the individual level, underscoring the personalized nature of career planning. Conclusions: Reflective tasks can effectively promote key aspects of reflective self-awareness in career planning, especially when students are motivated. Digital tools like www.digibe.ch offer promising support for fostering deeper self-reflection in school settings. Future efforts should focus on integrating reflective practices into career education and supporting teachers in guiding students beyond immediate placement to long-term career development.