Young, Valach et al., 1997; Young, Valach, Ball et al., 2001). We
have been able to identify, monitor, and subsequently describe
joint, goal-directed action at the level of project, specifically in the
form of the family career development project. These studies illus-
trate how career is socially constructed through joint goal-directed
actions and projects. They lay the groundwork for the investigation
of other microsystem dyads and small groups that contribute to the
construction of career.
We have also been able to develop and refine the Qualitative
Action-Project Method, which involves collecting data for each of
the perspectives of action: manifest behavior, internal process, and
social meaning (Young, Valach, Ball et al., 2001; Young, Lynam,
Valach et al., 2000, 2001). This method allows for the qualitative
examination of projects over time. In this method, we collect data
representing the perspective of manifest behavior in the form of
videotaped conversations between parents and adolescents. We col-
lect data on internal processes and social meaning through the self-
confrontation procedure in which the participants are asked to recall
their feelings and thoughts during the conversation by seeing a video-
tape of the conversation immediately after it is completed. We also
collect data on social meaning, internal processes, and manifest
behavior through interviews with the participants, logs of their activ-
ities, and regular telephone calls that monitor the project across time.
We use narrative feedback to participants that summarizes,
from an action perspective, our analysis of their common activities
based on the videotapes and transcripts. These procedures neither
decontextualize the phenomenon being studied, because both ac-
tion and intention are involved, nor falsely contextualize it, for
example, by pretending that our research method is unobtrusive.
These procedures also contextualize the data so the need to gather
a lot of supporting information is reduced; the procedures actually
highlight what is notable to the participants. This method departs
from much research that addresses the researcher’s a priori con-
structs, usually measured through paper-and-pencil inventories or
questionnaires. Thus we maintain that our research pays tribute to
228 CAREER CHOICE AND DEVELOPMENT