Developmental Issues in Career Maturity and Career Decision Status

There is considerable diversity in the literature regarding age and gender differences on career maturity and career decision status. There is also a dearth of data on high school samples. The present study reports cross‐sectional data from 1,971 Australian adolescents, ages 12.51‐17.99 years, who completed the Career Decision Scale (S. H. Osipow, C. G. Carney, J. Winer, B. Yanico, & M. Koschier, 1976) and the Career Development Inventory (Australian; J. Lokan, 1984). Results illustrated a developmental progression in career maturity, although a less uniform pattern emerged with gender differences. Findings regarding career indecision also presented a complex picture and highlight the need to focus on other demographic and contextual factors.     

The Validity of Career Maturity Attitude Measures Among Black and White High School Students

To investigate the validity of five career maturity attitude measures among Black and White high school students, the Counseling Form of the Career Maturity Inventory Attitude Scale and a measure of appropriateness of career choices were administered to 83 Black and 239 White high school students. White students scored significantly higher than Black students on Involvement, Independence, and Compromise in Career Decision Making, and on Appropriateness of Career Choices. Reliability coefficients are mostly in the .50s and .60s. None of the five Attitude Scale subscales are related to appropriateness of career choices of Black students, and only one subscale, Compromise, is significantly correlated with appropriateness of career choices of White students. The data do not support the theoretical expectation that career maturity attitudes are related to appropriateness of career choices, and raise questions regarding the validity of inferences made about the career maturity of both Black and White students. Some practical and theoretical implications of the study are identified.     

Career Maturity: The Construct's Validity,Vitality, and Viability

Career maturity is a useful construct for studying adolescents, but it has limits. Professional counselors need to integrate personality and decision-making style into research on career maturity as well as give more than a passing nod to developmental theory. They cannot study career development at the individual level alone; context matters and is an integral part of career development. The amount of variance in individual career development accounted for by context and change may be so great that longitudinal research on individuals may not be worthwhile.     

Evaluating Differences in College Students' Career Decision Making on the Basis of Disability Status

College students with and without disabilities (N = 121) completed measures of career decision-making self-efficacy (N. E. Betz, K. Klein, & K. M. Taylor, 1996) and career decision-making attributional style (D. A. Luzzo & A. Jenkins-Smith, 1998). Students with disabilities reported significantly lower levels of career decision-making self-efficacy and exhibited more of a pessimistic attributional style for career decision making than did their peers without disabilities. Results are discussed in the context of developing effective career counseling interventions for college students with disabilities.     

Effects of a Career Course on Chinese High School Students' Career Decision-Making Readiness

Career decision-making is a critical task for high school students, yet little is known about how career interventions affect their decision-making skills and self-efficacy. We investigated the outcome of a career intervention in a Chinese high school setting to determine whether it would reduce the difficulties students faced in making a career decision and elevate their self-efficacy in career exploration. A career intervention course was delivered to 413 high school students (228 female, 185 male) who completed a demographic questionnaire, the Major Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Scale (Peng & Long, 2003), and the Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire–Chinese Version (Shen, 2005) before and after the intervention. Results indicated that the intervention had a positive impact on reducing students' difficulties making career decisions but had mixed results on career self-efficacy. Proactive, systematic, multilevel, and structured interventions over longer periods of time would likely help youth develop their career decision-making skills.     

Career Maturity Levels of Male Intercollegiate Varsity Athletes

This study examined the readiness of male intercollegiate varsity athletes to make career-related decisions. The research questions compared students participating in revenue- and nonrevenue-producing sports as well as Caucasian and minority (Black, Asian American, Hispanic American, Native American, and other) student-athletes on eight dimensions of career maturity measured by the Career Development Inventory (Super, Thompson, Lindeman, Jordaan, & Myers, 1981). No significant differences were found in the overall career maturity of the student-athletes based either on the type of sport played or on their race. Also, the interaction of type of sport and race was not significant in determining differences in student-athletes' career maturity levels. Implications for career counseling programs for student-athletes and future research are discussed.     

Attachment Style and Dysfunctional Career Thoughts: How Attachment Style Can Affect the Career Counseling Process

This article examines the relationship between attachment style, measured by Experiences in Close Relationships‐Revised (R. C. Fraley, N. G. Waller, & K. A. Brennan, 2000), and dysfunctional career thoughts, measured by the Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI; J. P. J. Sampson, G. W. Peterson, J. G. Lenz, R. C. Reardon, & D. E. Saunders, 1994a). Two hypotheses related to attachment style and dysfunctional career thoughts were tested with 46 adult immigrants (17 men, 29 women). Results show that both attachment anxiety and avoidance were significantly related to scores on the CTI; increased attachment avoidance also significantly correlated with decision‐making confusion and external conflict. Implications of the relationship between attachment style and dysfunctional career thoughts for the career counseling process are discussed.     

Attributional Retraining Increases Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy

This study examined whether 60 college students (41 women and 19 men), grouped according to their career locus of control, were differentially affected by a videotaped career intervention. The intervention was an attributional retraining procedure designed to persuade students to attribute low levels of confidence in making career decisions and career-related failures to a lack of effort. Results indicated that the career decision-making self-efficacy (CDMSE) of students who initially exhibited an external career locus of control significantly increased after the attributional retraining procedure (p < .05), whereas the students who initially exhibited an internal career locus of control demonstrated no significant increase in CDMSE after attributional retraining.     

Career Maturity of Students in Accelerated Versus Traditional Programs

The authors assessed the career maturity of students in accelerated versus traditional academic programs. Students in traditional programs were hypothesized to be more advanced regarding their career decision making and development when compared with students in accelerated programs. The Medical Career Development Inventory (see M. L. Savickas, 1984) was administered to 441 medical students. Results showed that students in traditional programs had significantly greater career crystallization and career specification. Interventions are needed to further the career maturity and developmental tasks of students in accelerated programs.     

Career Maturity and Quality of Life in Korean Adolescents: A Cross‐Lagged Panel Design

This study investigated the effectiveness of a short‐term career exploration program for enhancing career maturity and quality of life in Korean adolescents. It further tested causality between career maturity and quality of life defined as school satisfaction and subjective well‐being. We used a cross‐lagged panel design to examine the links among career maturity, subjective well‐being, and school satisfaction, measured both before and 4 weeks after a career exploration program for 224 Korean middle school students. Study results indicated that 4 weeks after the program implementation, there were significant increases in career maturity, subjective well‐being, and school satisfaction. A significant causal relationship from the pretest score of career maturity to the posttest score of school satisfaction was found. Results suggest that the implementation of a short‐term career exploration program designed to increase career maturity also significantly promotes school satisfaction. Limitations of the study are discussed along with suggestions for future research.     

Assessing Efficacy and Importance of Career Counseling Competencies

The authors examined self‐efficacy and perceived importance of several career counseling competencies among counselors in school settings (N = 567). The social cognitive career theory was used as a conceptual framework. Participants completed a modified version of the Career Counseling Self‐Efficacy Scale (CCSES) that also included an importance rating. A principal components analysis was used to examine the factorial structure of the modified CCSES and to determine the generalizabilty of the original CCSES findings to practicing school counselors. In addition, counselors' importance ratings were compared to those of a panel of counselor educators and career guidance consultants.     

Effects of DISCOVER on the Career Maturity of Middle School Students

This study evaluated the effects of DISCOVER (American College Testing [ACT], 1991), a computer-assisted career guidance system, on the career maturity of 38 students (22 girls and 16 boys) enrolled in a rural middle school. Students randomly assigned to the treatment group worked with DISCOVER for approximately 1 hour a day over a 2-week period, whereas students in the control group did not have access to the DISCOVER program. Results indicated significant gains in career maturity among students in the treatment group (p <.05).     

Career Development Attributes and Occupational Values of Asian American and White American College Students

This study examined differences in career development attributes and occupational values between Asian American and White American college students using (a) the Crites' (1978) Career Maturity Inventory; (b) Harren's (1978) Assessment of Career Decision Making: Styles Subscales; (c) Holland, Daiger, and Power's (1980) My Vocational Situation; and (d) Rosenberg's (1957) Occupations and Values Scale. Asian Americans were found to have greater preferences for Dependent decisionmaking styles and also a lower level of career maturity. No differences in vocational identity were found between the cultural groups. Asian Americans also placed greater emphasis on extrinsic and security occupational value clusters (e.g., making more money, having a stable, secure future) relative to White Americans. The counseling and research implications of the results are discussed.     

Evaluating DISCOVER's Effectiveness in Enhancing College Students' Social Cognitive Career Development

College students (20 women, 14 men) seeking career counseling services at a university career center participated in this exploratory investigation. A 2 (DISCOVER treatment) × 2 (counseling treatment) research design was used to evaluate the individual and combined effects of DISCOVER (ACT, 1998) and counseling on participants' career decision‐making self‐efficacy and career decision‐making attributional style. Findings revealed a significant effect of the use of DISCOVER on participants' career decision‐making self‐efficacy and their sense of control over the career decision‐making process. Results are discussed regarding the implications for career counseling and ideas for further research in this domain.     

Racial/Ethnic Minority Vocational Research Trends: An 11‐Year Update

This study extends Flores et al.'s ( 2006 ) 36‐year analysis of racial/ethnic minority (REM) career research to identify recent trends in choice of topics and leading individual and institutional contributors. The authors identified 166 articles on REM career research published from 2005 to 2015 in the Journal of Vocational Behavior, The Career Development Quarterly, the Journal of Career Assessment, and the Journal of Career Development. Of these studies, 92% were empirical, with more than three quarters of these using quantitative rather than qualitative methodology. Most frequently, the empirical studies (n = 153) were based on samples of high school (30.7%) or undergraduate (34.6%) students. The authors discuss the implications of their findings and suggest ways to expand REM career research in the future.     

Longitudinal Relations of Parental Influences and Adolescent Career Aspirations and Actions in a Collectivist Society

Using social cognitive career theory as a framework, we examined the longitudinal effects of proximal parental contextual influences on career aspirations and actions in a collectivist context. We used a sample of 954 Indonesian high school students and measured parental career expectations, adolescent‐parent career congruence, self‐efficacy, outcome expectations, career aspirations, planning and exploration, twice, 6 months apart. The best‐fitting model was reciprocal, with the results showing that parental career expectations predicted subsequent career aspirations and planning, and aspirations and congruence with parents regarding career matters predicted future exploration. Self‐efficacy and outcome expectations were reciprocally related over time. Self‐efficacy served as an across‐time predictor of both parental contextual variables. Career exploration predicted future self‐efficacy and planning predicted later outcome expectations.     

Reducing Adolescent Career Indecision: The ASVAB Career Exploration Program

An independent evaluation of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) Career Exploration Program was conducted using nationally representative samples of high school students. The sample consisted of current ASVAB Program participants (n = 255) and two control groups of nonparticipants (n = 233, n = 189). A pretest‐posttest design showed that participation in the ASVAB Program increased career exploration knowledge and reduced diffusion and approach‐approach forms of career indecision, as assessed by the Career Decision Scale (S. Osipow, 1986).     

Career Self‐Efficacy and Perceptions of Parent Support in Adolescent Career Development

The authors examined the relative contributions of both proximal and distal supports to the career interests and vocational self‐efficacy in a multiethnic sample (N = 139) of middle school adolescents. Consistent with Social Cognitive Career Theory, it was found that (a) vocational self‐efficacy and career planning/exploration efficacy consistently predicted young adolescents' career interests across Holland (J. L. Holland, D. R. Whitney, N. S. Cole, & J. M. Richards, 1969) themes; (b) gender and career gender‐typing predicted interests in Realistic, Investigative, and Social careers; and (c) perceived parent support accounted for 29% to 43% of the total unique variance in vocational self‐efficacy for all Holland theme careers.     

Group Career Construction Counseling: A Mixed‐Methods Intervention Study With High School Students

This study investigated the value of group career construction counseling in a high school context. The author used purposive sampling to select participants who had sought career counseling. A mixed‐methods intervention study design was also used. Participants (N = 57) completed the Career Adapt‐Abilities Scale–South Africa (CAAS‐SA) before the 1st and after the 2nd intervention. The Career Interest Profile and the Maree Career Matrix were used to facilitate the intervention, and the CAAS‐SA was used to test the research hypotheses. The findings revealed that the boys’ and the girls’ career adaptability had improved meaningfully on all of the CAAS‐SA subscales. No gender‐based differences were found. However, differences were detected between both the boys’ and the girls’ pre‐ and posttest Control and Confidence subscale scores. The findings demonstrate the value of career construction counseling in group settings. More longitudinal research with diverse participants is needed.     

Attachment and Self‐Efficacy in Career Search Activities: A Structural Model

The author integrated attachment theory with social cognitive career theory (SCCT) to examine how attachment styles influence the career search self‐efficacy activities of interviewing, networking, job searching, and personal exploration. Using an undergraduate sample (N = 275, 81% women), the author tested a structural model. Results indicated that anxious attachment style was negatively related to interviewing self‐efficacy, whereas avoidant attachment style was negatively related to networking, job searching, and personal exploration self‐efficacy. Theoretical implications based on these findings provide support for an integrative model of attachment theory with SCCT. Career counselors are encouraged to consider clients’ attachment styles when working with individuals who are searching for employment. To help address the limitations of the study, future researchers could test the applicability of the current model with a more diverse sample.