Dutch secondary school counselors’ and tutors’ views on how students should make study profile choices

Student counselors and tutors guide students’ choices of study profiles (subjects) within Dutch secondary education. This study addressed three research questions: (1) According to counselors and tutors, what factors should inform students’ study profile choices? (2) Into what types can the views of counselors and tutors be classified? (3) According to counselors and tutors, which factors should secondary school students consider when choosing their study profiles in a forced-choice situation? Interviews held with 70 tutors and counselors identified students’ interests, abilities, and future-oriented considerations as most important (RQ1). Six types of views were identified in which one, two, or all of the above-mentioned factors were regarded the most important by the participants (RQ2). Responses to the forced-choice situations largely confirmed different perspectives on the factors: the majority of participants perceived students’ interests very important (RQ3).