A theory evaluation of action volunteers Africa's career guidance programme

This research presents an evaluation of a youth unemployment initiative. Action Volunteers Africa (AVA) implements a Career Guidance Programme in Western Cape, South Africa. The Programme targets unemployed male and female youth aged 18-25 who have completed matric and live in urban areas. Career guidance is embedded in all the Life Matters Programme. The programme uses a variety of activities to help youth identify their career aspirations, build competencies, and gain work experience through volunteering, so that they are better prepared to enter the job market. The programme's current design, however, has been based on AVA's internal learning experiences with the programme. No design and implementation choices have been derived from social science research or best practice approaches. The client wanted to assess whether the theory of their programme was plausible, compared to other successful career guidance programmes, and whether any improvements were necessary to strengthen the causal logic between their activities and intended outcomes. Accordingly, a theory evaluation of the programme was undertaken. The theory evaluation was guided by five theory-driven evaluation steps prescribed by Donaldson (2007). The evaluation entailed document review, extracting initial programme theory, conducting a plausibility check using a literature review and stakeholder feedback to produce a refined plausible programme theory of the programme. Overall, the initial programme theory was found to be plausible. Most components of the programme theory suggested good alignment to similar interventions. The programme has clearly articulated pathways between different components of its theory. AVA's Career Guidance Programme aligns with different career development, counselling and learning theories. The programme's quality assurance is supported by regular feedback, the use of qualified personnel, and the specification of outputs and outcomes. The research suggested that short-term outcomes have been achieved thus far by programme participants, supporting the inclusion of these outcomes in the programme's theory of change. These outcomes included: self-awareness (in several contexts including passion, career choice, etc), self-discipline, and different behaviours that demonstrated motivation and youth effort to seek employment or further education. Following the extensive theory evaluation, an adjusted programme theory was presented to inform future programming. The findings emphasised the need for AVA to develop career guidance standards to inform its practice and also, expand its scope of activities to meet the emerging needs of targeted youth. These recommendations included exposure to more careers, the use of job shadowing, coaching, and linking interns to education opportunities.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

School of Management Studies

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Waswaga, Robert

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Duffy, Carren

• Career guidance
• Guidance standards
• Programme plausibility
• Programme theory
• Theory evaluation
• Theory in practice

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/41938

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/41938