An International Scoping Review of Empirical Research
It’s a rare occasion when a Ministry of Education in one country finances a research project that will benefit officials of Ministries of Education in other countries but this scoping review undertaken for the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research certainly deserves our attention. The international review was commissioned as part of a broader ministry strategy to strengthen the knowledge base for lifelong guidance and to support more equitable educational and labour-market outcomes, in particular, career guidance as a key instrument for reducing early school leaving, improving educational and labour-market transitions, and addressing social inequality.
The review aimed to map the volume, range and nature of empirical outcome studies on career guidance and career learning in educational settings and at key transition points. It did not undertake a formal critical appraisal or quality/ risk-of-bias assessment of the studies included and therefore does not support conclusions about effectiveness. To be included, studies had to meet a set of predefined eligibility criteria. They needed to focus on learners or people in education or in transition between education, training and work, and to examine career guidance or career learning interventions set in educational or transition contexts. The report only featured studies that reported empirical outcomes using quantitative, qualitative or mixed-methods designs, were conducted in Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand or a small number of comparable contexts, and were published between 2014 and April 2025 in English or a Scandinavian language. In total, 212 studies met the inclusion criteria.
Ninety-six (96) studies concerned evaluations of specific courses, guidance models, coaching programmes or digital tools. Seventy-four (74) studies were descriptive in nature, mapping how guidance and career learning are organised or experienced in settings such as university career services, vocational programmes or regional guidance systems. Forty-two (42) studies explored relationships between participation in guidance or career learning and outcomes such as aspirations, engagement or attainment, often using large-scale survey data. The dominant focus in the outcome measures was on individual, self-reported learning-level outcomes. About 85% of the studies reported at least one learning-level outcome. By contrast, behavioural-level outcomes (what learners actually did as a result of an intervention) were less frequently examined. Studies of results-level outcomes were even less common.
Only a handful of studies were conducted in the Nordic region, of which just seven were from Norway. This imbalance has implications for transferability and underlines the importance of building a stronger Nordic evidence base. The review identified clear knowledge gaps, particularly in relation to vulnerable groups that are central to current Norwegian equity policy and clarified where the existing evidence is too thin or methodologically diverse to justify a full systematic review.
The report is accompanied by a very useful complementary evidence gap map (EGM), which provides an overview of the included studies and allows them to be explored in relation to the variables coded in the review: https://ksu-karriereveiledning-egm.onrender.com/ as well as illustrating the evidence gaps according to these variables.
The scoping study was conducted by the Knowledge Centre for Education (Kunnskapssenter for utdanning) in collaboration with Ida H. Mathiesen at the Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioural Research in Education (Nasjonalt senter for læringsmiljø og atferdsforskning), and in close dialogue with the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills (HK-dir).
John McCarthy, Director, ICCDPP
20 April 2026
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ICCDPP wishes to acknowledge the support of the Ministry of Children and Education, Denmark, and the Canadian Career Development Foundation
