Career Exploration of High School Students: Status Quo, Challenges, and Coping Model

Teenagers are an important period to explore future careers, which has been paid close attention by researchers. The new policy of College Entrance Examination Reform put forward by China in 2014 clearly pointed out that students should choose subjects suitable for their future study and development, which posed a great challenge to students' personal interests and future career development. Career exploration, as one of the effective means to know oneself and the external environment, is considered an effective way to deal with this challenge. In order to provide appropriate advice to students and schools, researchers must not only understand the new policy but also the development status of career exploration and the help it can bring to students. A systematic literature search identified 503 papers exploring high school students' career exploration. After analysis, this study found: (1) there was little research on career exploration in high schools, and a unified concept definition has not been formed yet; (2) all empirical studies were focused on some practical operation, lacking systematic and complete career. Therefore, based on the literature review and the challenges of career exploration in high schools, this study attempted to establish a new coping model suitable for high school students' career exploration, with a view to providing help for high school students' discipline selection and future development.