Career Adaptability in Childhood

Childhood marks the dawn of vocational development, involving developmental tasks, transitions, and change. Children must acquire the rudiments of career adaptability to envision a future, make educational and vocational decisions, explore self and occupations, and problem solve. The authors situate child vocational development within human life span and life course development paradigms and career development theory. They then consider the theoretical origins of career adaptability and examine it as a critical construct for construing vocational development. Two models derived from career construction theory offer guides for research and counseling practice designed to foster development through work and other social roles.     

Career Adaptability: An Integrative Construct for Life-Span,Life-Space Theory

The four segments in the life-span, life-space approach to comprehending and intervening in careers (individual differences, development, self, and context), constitute four perspectives on adaptation to life roles. Adaptation serves as a bridging construct to integrate the complexity engendered by viewing vocational behavior from four distinct vantage points. To correspond to adaptation as the core construct, career adaptability should replace career maturity as the critical construct in the developmental perspective on adaptation. Moreover, adaptability could be conceptualized using developmental dimensions similar to those used to describe career maturity, namely planning, exploring, and deciding.     

Cohesion and Adaptability in Post-Divorce Remarried and First Married Families:

Past research indicates that post-divorce remarried families report lower levels of family cohesion and adaptability than do first married families, but differences are not found in the adjustment of children or satisfaction with the marital relationship. The present study examined the possibilities that (a) lower levels of cohesion and adaptability may be optimal for remarried families, (b) cohesion and adaptability may be less important for coping and stress in stepfamilies than in first married families, and (c) patterns of relationships between the two sets of variables may be different for the two family types. A series of analyses relating cohesion and adaptability to family stress and coping styles revealed that high levels of family cohesion and adaptability are equally if not more important for stepfamilies as they are for biological families in reference to family stress and coping.     

Career Adaptability and Occupational Engagement of Student Veterans

This study examined the specific career‐related behaviors of career adaptability and occupational engagement among student veterans (N = 100). Contrary to expectations, findings showed statistically significant negative correlations between career adaptability resources (control, concern, curiosity, and confidence) and occupational engagement. Multiple regression analyses indicated that the curiosity resource of career adaptability significantly predicted occupational engagement. The findings suggest a need to understand the complexity of career adaptability and occupational engagement in both research and practice for student veterans.     

Career Adaptability and Turnover Intention: A Dual-Mediation Model

Career adaptability denotes psychosocial resources that help employees self-manage career change through both adapting themselves to the environment and adapting the environment to themselves. Previous studies have probed the former strategy and proposed a negative relationship between career adaptability and turnover intention. However, the presence of the latter strategy suggests a more complex relationship than previously thought. From a person-job fit perspective, the authors used structural equation modeling to examine the mechanism underlying the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction (an important predictor of turnover intention) among 218 employees working in China. The results showed that career adaptability had mixed effects on job satisfaction through the mediating role of task adaptivity and perceived overqualification. Overall, these findings carry theoretical and practical implications for career adaptability research and career counseling practices related to employee development.     

Academic Engagement and Achievement Predict Career Adaptability

Abundant evidence indicates that personality, social, cultural, and contextual factors predict career adaptability. However, little research attends to the roles of academic engagement and achievement in career adaptability, especially in non‐Western cultural contexts. We examined the associations of perceived academic engagement dimensions (i.e., behavioral and emotional engagement) and academic achievement with facets of career adaptability among 324 Filipino high school students. Results of hierarchical regression analyses demonstrate that, after controlling for age and gender, behavioral engagement served as the strongest predictor of concern, curiosity, confidence, and control. In addition, perceived academic achievement was the weakest predictor of career adaptability dimensions. Our findings underscore the benefits of integrating active involvement in school‐related tasks to foster career adaptability in high school student populations.     

Student Veteran Career Transition Readiness,Career Adaptability,and Academic and Life Satisfaction

Student military veterans pursuing higher education present with unique career development needs. To better understand these needs, the authors conducted an exploratory study to examine career transition readiness, career adaptability, academic satisfaction, and satisfaction with life among 134 student military veterans (34 women, 100 men). Results indicated statistically significant positive correlations between satisfaction with life scores and scores on measures of career transition readiness and career adaptability. Regression results demonstrated that career transition readiness and career adaptability predicted satisfaction with life, but not academic satisfaction. The findings suggest a need to understand the complexity of student veterans’ career and academic development in both research and practice.     

Family‐of‐Origin Influence on Career Thoughts

The family can exert an important influence on career decision making. This study investigated the impact of adaptability and cohesion in family‐of‐origin relationships on dysfunctional career thoughts in 269 college students (221 women, 48 men). The Career Thoughts Inventory and the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Scales–IV were used to assess family dynamics and dysfunctional career thoughts. The study addressed the following research question: What is the impact of family cohesion and adaptability in the participant's family of origin on dysfunctional career thoughts, specifically decision‐making confusion, commitment anxiety, and external conflict? Results revealed that higher levels of family cohesion were associated with lower levels of decision‐making confusion, commitment anxiety, and external conflict and that higher levels of family adaptability were associated with lower levels of external conflict.     

A Methodological Study of Family Cohesion and Adaptability*

In an attempt to locate clinically and empirically useful tools to measure family cohesion and adaptability, a modified multitrait-multimethod analysis was used to assess the validity of four separate instruments. These instruments include SIMFAM, an adaptation of the Bowerman and Bahr Identification Scale, the Moos Family Environment Scale, and the Kvebaek Family Sculpture lest. The data support the Family Sculpture Test as a useful clinical and research tool for the measurement of family cohesion but not of adaptability.     

Critical reflection of the reintegration process through the lens of gender oppression: the case of social work with mothers in shelters

The article discusses the impact of the construct of motherhood on the process of reintegration of single mothers from shelters into permanent forms of housing in the Czech Republic. At the beginning of the article, we deal with the construct of women and mothers in Czech society and apply this construct to the construct of homeless mothers who are clients of shelters. We also describe the system of shelters in the Czech Republic. Our research involved 33 communication partners, who were either currently staying in a shelter or already reintegrated into permanent housing. When analyzing the results of the research, it showed that the construct of motherhood was one of the key themes and oppressive mechanisms. Mothers in interviews thematised the label of ‘bad mother’, the forced masculinization of their own conduct and takeover of the competence of mothers by the service, the construct of anti-mother and the need for ‘public mothering’. Based on the research data, we created a two-level model of the reintegration process.     

Measuring Career Development: Current Status and Future Directions

Donald E. Super's work to linguistically explicate and operationally define career development and its central processes has strongly influenced how counselors throughout the world comprehend and guide their clients' vocational behavior. Starting at midcentury, Super conceptualized career development in terms of life stages and developmental tasks. He proposed that counselors measure career maturity, globally, by comparing chronological age with developmental task being encountered, and that they measure career maturity, specifically, by identifying the coping methods used in facing a task. Super advanced counselors' abilities to understand and counsel adolescents who are trying to specify educational and vocational choices by explaining the importance of career choice readiness and by devising measures of career maturity. To complement the construct of maturation as the central process in adolescent career development, Super proffered the construct of adaptability as the central process in adult career development and also devised a measure of this process.     

Career Adaptability and Social Support Among Graduating College Seniors

Previous research has highlighted the employment needs of recent college graduates, focusing on the specific challenges members of this group encounter as they transition into the workforce. This study examined graduating seniors (N = 164) during their senior year of college as they transitioned to the workforce, investigating career adaptability and social support. Results from multiple regression analyses found that the concern resource of career adaptability was significantly predicted by social support. Implications and future directions are highlighted.     

Self‐Focused Attention and Career Anxiety: The Mediating Role of Career Adaptability

The purpose of this study was to examine how 2 forms of self‐focused attention, self‐reflection and self‐rumination, influence career anxiety. The authors hypothesized that the association between these 2 types of self‐focused attention and career anxiety would be mediated by career adaptability on the basis of a career construction model of adaptation. The participants were 326 undergraduate students in South Korea. The results of this study supported the hypothesized mediation model by indicating significant indirect effects of self‐reflection and self‐rumination on career anxiety via career adaptability. The direct effect of self‐rumination on career anxiety was significant (B = .44, p < .01), but the direct effect of self‐reflection on career anxiety was not significant (B = –.05, p > .05). The authors discuss implications for counselors to help college students manage career anxiety by encouraging and supporting increased career adaptability. Future research to examine the cross‐cultural validity of the current findings is needed.     

Kooperative Resilienz – ein soziotechnischer Ansatz durch Kooperationstechnologien im KrisenmanagementCooperative resilience – a sociotechnical approach through cooperation technologies in crisis management

Whilst the concept of resilience in engineering is mainly focussed on the availability of technical systems, we rather see resilience as socio-technical construct and show opportunities to encourage cooperative resilience with the help of cooperation technologies. After a general definition of resilience in our application field of emergency management and in the context of cooperative structures, we present our methodology and the developed cooperation technologies. They address the collaboration of diverse players (such as police, fire department, and citizen) in major emergencies. Finally we discuss the input of this technology for cooperative resilience to overcome crises of cooperation with the help of adaptability to modified realities by means of cooperation technology.     

Labor and Production Barriers to the Reduction of Agricultural Chemical Inputs1

Abstract Advocates of sustainable agriculture consider farmer flexibility and innovativeness a key element in efforts to develop farm practices that reduce chemical inputs. In contrast to labor displacing technologies, farming with reduced chemical inputs may increase labor demands. Consequently, concerns about labor supply may affect farmer adaptability in reducing chemical inputs. This research addresses two specific questions. First, how concerned are farmers about the availability of labor needed to reduce chemical inputs? Second, do farmers view production problems as insurmountable without chemicals because of labor constraints? The majority of farmers surveyed agree that it is difficult to reduce chemical inputs because additional labor is hard to find, and their own labor inputs would have to increase. Results of OLS regression analysis show that whether the farmer hires workers affects the relationship between perceived labor and production barriers. Labor supply is less elastic for farmers who hire no labor, and they have less access to social networks that would provide them with sources of the additional workers needed if chemical inputs were reduced. The significance of these results for the development of sources of information that enhance farmer adaptability is discussed.     

A TEST OF THE CURVILINEAR HYPOTHESIS WITH FACES II AND III

Previous research has not supported the validity of Olson's "curvilinear hypothesis." Convergent validity studies of the FACES I and II have indicated that the "cohesion" and "adaptability" dimensions have a linear relation with healthy family functioning. It is not clear, however, whether these findings are due to the measurement of the FACES' constructs or to the curvilinear theory. This study tested the "curvilinear hypothesis" in terms of these theoretical and measurement issues. The results indicate that FACES II and III do not adequately operation-alize the "curvilinear hyothesis." However, an item consistent with the "curvilinear hypothesis" utilizing a bipolar item response format did adequately opera-tionalize the theory. The use of a bipolar item response format is suggested in the measurement of "cohesion" and "adaptability."     

Decision‐Making Styles,Career Decision Self‐Efficacy,and Career Adaptability Among High School Students

We investigated the relationships between decision‐making styles, career decision self‐efficacy, and career adaptability among high school students. We also sought to determine whether gender moderates the relationships among these three constructs. A total of 216 Serbian final‐year high school students responded to career adaptability and decision‐making measures. Results of structural equation modeling showed that career decision self‐efficacy mediates a positive relationship between the rational and intuitive styles and a negative relationship between the dependent style and career adaptability. The rational style only had a direct effect on career adaptability. Gender moderated one path—a regression weight of self‐efficacy on career adaptability. For male students, self‐efficacy was not a significant predictor of career adaptability. The results suggest that career counselors might approach students differently depending on students' gender and that the role of gender in career decision‐making and adaptability processes should be investigated further.     

Older Professional Women's Views on Work: A Qualitative Analysis

This qualitative study reports on the career experiences of older professional women using consensual qualitative research. Thirteen women over age 50 were interviewed regarding the influences of gender and age on work. In general, all participants reported career adaptability, and many participants also reported specific subthemes of career adaptability (i.e., concern, control, curiosity, and confidence) as resources. These subthemes denote participants' future orientation, self‐discipline as evidenced by their conscientiousness in career decisions, active information seeking, and certitude that they have the ability to solve career‐related problems. Relationships with colleagues were also considered critical, and participants acknowledged the benefits and drawbacks of being a woman and being older. These women were able to achieve flexibility and autonomy in their work and spoke about the importance of work–family balance and boundaries. Practitioners are encouraged to consider how career adaptability is manifested within the interplay between gender and age, because this can influence career counseling with older women.     

The (non)comparability of the correlation effect size across different measurement procedures: a challenge to meta-analysis as a tool for identifying "evidence based practices"

Meta-analysis is becoming a principal tool for research synthesis and for the identification and justification of evidence based practices. A fundamental assumption in meta-analysis is that effect sizes based upon different measures are comparable. Recent work has challenged this assumption in the case of the standardized mean difference. In this article it is shown that population universe (true) score level correlation effect sizes, for the relationship between two constructs A and B, based upon different measures will be comparable only if construct validity invariance holds across the measures used to make inferences to A and the measures used to make inferences to B. The results of a simulation study are also reported which show that the results of a meta-analysis may be significantly and adversely affected by violations of construct validity invariance. Finally, it is concluded that the theoretical results obtained in this article, and the results of the simulation study, combine to suggest that the role of meta-analysis in the synthesis of social work research, and in the identification of evidence based practices, be de-emphasized until important questions about the sensitivity of meta-analysis to violations of construct validity invariance are answered.