Promuovere l’autoefficacia, l’immagine di sé e la capacità decisionale al liceo costruendo il proprio progetto di vita professionale

In the school year 2022-2023, 115 students (88 females and 27 males) in the fourth year of the high school «Francesco Scaduto» (speciality «Human Sciences») of Bagheria participated in a 30-hour PCTO linked to the PNRR, in which the joint impact of four types of interventions was tested: a university teaching experience (12 hours), four monthly expressive writing sessions of 30 minutes each (2 hours), four monthly guidance interviews of one hour each (4 hours), the creation of a digital portfolio (12 hours). The aim was to examine the extent to which participation in the PCTO promoted the development of three soft skills in high school students that significantly influence the process of maturing educational and career choices: an appropriate self-image, perceived self-efficacy and decision-making skills. The first assessment of the degree of development of these three soft skills was carried out in November 2022, the interim assessment in March 2023 and the final assessment in May 2023. Wilcoxon’s statistical test was used to check the significance of the «pre-inter-post» differences. The differences between the final and initial scores are significant for the self-efficacy (p=0.04), «Energy» (p=8.468 10-7), «Positive Affectivity» (p=9.133 10-5) and «Emotional Stability» (p=0.003) dimensions of self-image and for decision-making skills (p=0.001); the differences between the intermediate and initial scores are significant for the «Energy» (p=0.0001), «Positive Affectivity» (p=0.001) and «Emotional Stability» (p=0.02) of the self-image and for decision-making skills (p=0.003); the differences between the final and intermediate scores are significant for self-efficacy (p=0.03) and for decision-making (p=0.03). In May 2023, the degree of clarity of the students’ ideas about their educational-professional choice was significantly improved (p=0.001)