This study paralleled Smallman's (1993) analysis of college athletes at an NCAA Division I school, which found significant differences between athletes and nonathletes in readiness to make career decisions. The present study measured career decision-making skills using The Career Development Inventory. In addition, the present study examined the salience of roles (i.e., student, worker, citizen, family member, and leasurite) as measured by The Salience Inventory.

No description available.

This study conceptualizes the married woman's experience of relocation as a passage through a moving 'career'. This passage follows a prescribed, regularized sequence of stages involving decision-making, planning, relocation, and settling-in. Such a conceptualization allows the examination of geographic mobility as a process occurring over time and within the context of other life events; and of the role of the previous environment in shaping the definition of, and response to, the new social world. The data for this study were collected through interviews with 123 married women who moved with their spouses into the metropolitan area of Hamilton and Burlington, Ontario. All had moved within Canada, but not less than 35 miles; had not lived in the target area within the preceding five years; and were interviewed within a year of their move. They were contacted through the cooperation of national van lines agents, a federal government mobility programme, and a municipal department of social services. A focus of the research is on the wife's role in and response to her moving career. Her control over that career varies considerably with each stage. Women have little control over the initiation of the passage during the decision-making stage, but have substantial control over what they consider to be the 'mundane' tasks which comprise the planning and relocation stages. During the settling-in stage, however, most women play the key role in establishing the home and making the move successful for their families. Thus many women feel responsible for the success of a moving career which they had little role in initiating. This research also addresses the question of whether, why, and in what ways women perceive their experience of relocation as different from that of their spouse. Most wives felt that moving was more difficult for them than for their husbands. The major differentiating factor was not the husband's occupational career per se, but rather the continuity of that career through working for the same employer or in a related field. Few women in this study experienced such occupational continuity. The husband's experience of relocation not only differed from but also complicated that of his wife. This was most apparent in his leaving for the new community weeks or months before the wife and children. Although rarely examined by migration researchers, this sequencing of the moving career is an important aspect of wives' experiences of relocation. Many women found this period of separation from the spouse the most difficult and disruptive stage of the moving career. Family life cycle stage also emerged as an important factor distinguishing wives' experiences of geographic mobility. Women who became mothers or whose children left the nuclear family at the time of the move found themselves in competing status passages. Relocation complicated the experiences of those who became mothers; for those who launched children from the home, the moving career both initiated and complicated passage through this family life cycle stage. Migration researchers fundamentally disagree on whether the experience of relocation has primarily beneficial or disruptive consequences for people. In the short term, most women found moving to be highly disruptive of routine, taken-for-granted reality, and social life. There was no support for the proposition that as familiarity with the role of mover increases, women learn techniques for easing the disruptiveness of the passage. While the wives could generalize the passage so that the physical aspects of relocation became easier, the experience of social and emotional disruption actually increased with repeated relocation. Nevertheless, most women felt that they had personally benefitted from geographic mobility, by becoming more independent, confident, and assertive. The long term consequences of relocation are more uncertain, however. Many women suffered a sense of rootlessness and lacked a concept of a life-plan, of where and who they would be when the moves were over. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

No description available.

The career development and career decision-making needs of African-American males have generated much inquiry. Two year colleges currently serve as the predominant point of entry for many African-American male students seeking baccalaureate degrees. However, the transition to and eventual success at the four-year institution is often met with challenges. The inability to choose a major that may lead to a desired career has the potential to serve as a barrier for some students. From the lens of social cognitive career theory, this qualitative study was conducted to examine the experiences of undecided, African-American male transfer students at a large, four-year metropolitan university. Upon analyzing data from the interviews, themes were developed according to three research questions. Themes that offered insight into major selection process included: (a) choosing a major that offered potential job stability/security, (b) experiences related to academic ability, and (c) experiences with gender relative to career decision-making. Participation in the Direct Connect program was the minor theme found related to experiences encountered in the transfer process that influence major and/or career development. Themes related to the development of career decision-making self-efficacy included: (a) choosing careers believed to be consistent with one’s person, (b) indecision while at the community college, (c) engagement in practical experiences, (d) solving problems, (e) meeting with advisors and counselors at the community college, and (e) involvement in extracurricular activities

<p>This dissertation consisted of a mixed-methods investigation into expectations about what “counts” as an engineering career and how individuals make decisions about their futures. Presented as a set of three independent but closely related studies, I examined the ways that engineering students, alumni, and educators think and talk about careers and career decision-making. This work focused not only on the content of participants’ experiences, but also the extent to which their claims may reflect or inform commonly held beliefs about what is normal, expected, or assumed. Such a focus adds an additional layer to ongoing conversations about how we can support students in their future endeavors. </p> <p><br></p> <p>The participants were students, alumni, or educators from four engineering programs (i.e., biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, and mechanical engineering) at a single institution in the United States. The first study investigated the experiences of engineering undergraduate students with varying career plans at the cusp of the college-to-career transition. The fourteen students balanced an expectation of passion and fulfillment against an uncertainty of how to choose from their many and wide-ranging career options. I analyzed participants’ claims through discourse analysis and leveraged the concept of transformative decisions to highlight the difficulty of applying a rational decision-making framework to engineering students’ career decisions.</p> <p><br></p> <p>To complement the student perspective, I also investigated the perspectives of engineering alumni and educators. In the second study, I collected survey data from engineering undergraduate degree holders (n = 1,979) who earned their degree between 1970 and 2019. Using write-in data, I mapped alumni’s career pathways for their first four positions after graduation (i.e., their early career pathways). While some findings were unsurprising (e.g., the recent Millennial generation has shorter position durations compared to previous generations), the findings also highlight that the pathways of engineering degree holders have been generally consistent across time. Alumni have always moved in and out of roles that have “engineer” in the job title. In the survey, the alumni also named up to three educators at the institution that had been influential on their career pathways; those educators were targeted in the third study to better understand how to support students. I interviewed eleven influential educators about the strategies they used to help students make career decisions, which ranged from presenting themselves as approach to helping students figure out their interests. Beyond the pragmatic recommendations, the final study also highlights how the advice educators give do not always reflect their own experiences, underscoring why it is important to be aware of the expectations embedded in the messages we tell students.</p>

Cooperative education research suggests that co-op participation results in enhanced career maturity, yet little is known about the vocational behavior constructs that may produce these results. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between co-op work experience and career decision-making self-efficacy, an individual's confidence to successfully perform various career decision-making tasks. Another purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that only the co-op work experience group adheres to an internal career locus of control, a belief that one can control career outcomes by exercising effort. Based on social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986), it was hypothesized that co-op work experience would provide the greatest exposure to sources of self-efficacy information, namely performance accomplishments, vicarious learning (i.e, exposure to role models or mentors), and verbal persuasion (encouragement). Thus, college students having co-op work experience were expected to report significantly higher career decision-making self-efficacy (CDMSE) compared to college students having non-co-op work experience. Survey data were collected from 415 engineering and computer science students, sophomores through seniors, who had acquired co-op work experience or non-co-op work experience (both related and unrelated to the student's field of study or career interests). There was a 69.75% survey return rate in this (3 x 3) ex-post facto design study. One-Way ANOVAs revealed that CDMSE was significantly higher in the co-op work experience group than in the non-co-op (unrelated) work experience group at the completion of the second work term only. Also, CDMSE in the first work term was significantly higher than the second work term in the non-co-op (unrelated) work experience group. No evidence was found to support a significant cumulative effect in CDMSE. A Two-Way ANOVA revealed no significant interaction effect; however, the main effect of type of work experience was significant (p = .049) for CDMSE. No significant difference was found in the proportion of internal career locus of control between the co-op and non-co-op group. This study's findings did not support prior investigations that found a relationship between engagement in career exploration activities and an internal career locus of control. One-Way ANOVAs revealed a distinct pattern of significance among groups on work experience satisfaction, regardless of the work term completed. Though the co-op group and non-co-op (related) work experience group were comparable on work experience satisfaction, the non-co-op (unrelated) work experience group reported significantly lower work satisfaction from the single most significant work experience acquired during the college years. Survey feedback indicated that co-op students were well pleased with the opportunity to reality-test their career goals in the cooperative education program. Implications of the findings are discussed, and suggestions for future co-op research are provided. / Ph. D.

Information Technology (IT) jobs are in demand in the United States and rural Appalachian communities are attracting IT businesses. The need to fill IT jobs creates a workforce opportunity for these communities where students have limited access to academic and career resources. The Upward Bound and Talent Search programs respond to the academic and career needs of disadvantaged students and aim to educate students about high skills jobs but little is known about interest in IT careers among middle and high school students in rural Appalachia. This study validates models of IT career interest and parental support of IT careers in girls and boys enrolled in Upward Bound or Talent Search in rural communities in Virginia using the theoretical framework of self-authorship. The theory of self-authorship explores the development of meaning-making in individuals and offers a context-specific way to study interest in IT careers. Results indicate interest in IT careers but the path to IT career interest is different among girls and boys. Girls are relying on others for career advice more often than boys and there is direct association between the information sources and interest in IT careers. Parental support is important in IT career interest for both girls and boys. Other important variables indicating an interest in IT careers are computer use and positive attitudes toward IT workers. Receiving information from sources such as parents, teachers, counselors, and friends is especially important to girls. Findings from this study can be used to inform practices and policies for Upward Bound and Talent Search. / Ph. D.

Collaborations to produce innovative models that link postsecondary education to workforce development initiatives have increased as multiple stakeholders respond to the call to develop a diverse, well-prepared STEM workforce. University and industry stakeholders in engineering agree that collaborating to share expertise and implement programs that aim to support the school-to-workforce transition for engineering graduates is critical. However, in light of existing efforts, a more nuanced view of university-industry partnerships from the student participant perspective is needed to provide data to engineering educators and professionals to support effective partnership design and use of resources. The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to understand how experiences in the Co-op Development Program (CDP) influence student participants’ subsequent career decision-making with respect to pursuing engineering industry positions. Guided by Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), this study examined the role that cooperative education experiences have on how students view and act on the potential employment opportunities that university and industry partners anticipate. Semi-structured interviews with eight former CDP participants, employed in industry at the time of the study, served as the primary data source. Additionally, program related documents, a profile questionnaire, and a conference proceeding were utilized to provide in-depth context of the CDP. Results indicate that all participants voiced a desire to work in the aerospace industry to explore short-term interests or to accomplish longer-term career entry goals. Furthermore, participants most frequently discussed experiences that required them to employ a sense of selfagency to complete work tasks (e.g., guiding themselves through uncertainty, observations of the environments, and interactions with engineering professionals) as learning experiences. Finally, participants primarily connected their learning experiences to their beliefs about what work looks like as a full-time engineer, their abilities to perform in an engineering role, and perceptions of fit across different engineering roles and workplaces. Major contributions of this study include extending the analytic generalizability of Social Cognitive Career Theory, creating operationalized definitions of learning experiences, and linking those experiences to students’ beliefs of the engineering industry pathway / Ph. D. / Persistent calls to the field of engineering education to help develop diverse, well-prepared engineers for the STEM workforce have fostered collaborations across university and industry stakeholders. As stakeholders focus efforts on supporting student persistence at several critical junctures, there has been a renewed interest in supporting the school-to-workforce transition for engineering graduates. With calls to develop a more tech-savvy workforce, innovative approaches to supporting and preparing students to enter the workforce have become even more necessary; thus it is important to understand how university- industry partnerships generate experiences that contribute to students' eventual workforce entry. The structure of the Co-op Development Program and the perspective of eight former CDP participants addressed how learning experiences shaped the career decisions of engineering participants immediately following graduation. A qualitative single case study approach was used and Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) guided the study. Major contributions of this study include extending the analytic generalizability of Social Cognitive Career Theory, creating operationalized definitions of learning experiences embedded within that framework, and linking those experiences to how students’ beliefs were shaped on their pathway to an early career within engineering industry. The themes identified in this study can help CDP managers and university stakeholders better support co-op participants and potentially allocate resources that will serve as the basis for future co-op design recommendations. Stakeholders may also use findings to promote the role of university and industry partnerships in supporting the student workforce transition. Future researchers may extend the study design across multiple cases and leverage recommendations for qualitative and quantitative investigations to address some of the limitations embedded within this research design and further contribute to the discussion of preparing students for professional work environments through university-industry partnerships. Ultimately, findings of this study give voice to the student partner in university-industry partnerships as themes identified in this study help CDP managers and university stakeholders to establish interventions and serve as the basis for future co-op design recommendations.

Career decision-making is complex and dynamic. Cognitive factors that influence career choice are of interest to researchers. In particular, negative career thoughts and career self-efficacy have been found to influence career decidedness. Similarly, cognitive expectancy has been linked to career decidedness through the locus of control construct. Where locus of control has demonstrated salutogenic stress reducing properties in health literature it has also been widely used in career research. Other cognitive expectancies could contribute to the literature pertaining to career choice. In particular, sense of coherence has begun to make inroads to career psychology. Where career decision-making research has been universally conducted with student populations, little has been conducted with adults. Because of developmental factors, student based research may not readily generalize to non-student adult based populations. Researching the career indecision of non-student adults could broaden the literature. Establishing the relationship between career thinking (negative career thoughts & career decision-making self-efficacy) and salutogenic functioning (locus of control & sense of coherence) would provide initial research into the nature of career indecision in non-student adults. A survey design assessed the relationship between career thinking and salutogenic functioning in an adult, career decision-making milieu. Two hundred and twenty five unemployed career undecided adults were sampled from community based career exploration programs. Correlative and regression analysis were conducted on career thinking and salutogenic functioning measures. Data analysis indicated statistically significant findings between career thinking and salutogenic functioning. In particular, negative career thoughts, career decision making self-efficacy, locus of control and sense of coherence were all found to have significant correlations between each other. Career thinking and sense of coherence strongly correlated with level of education, while locus of control negatively correlated with age. Regression analysis indicated that sense of coherence demonstrated stronger relationships to career thoughts than locus of control. Further, sense of coherence significantly predicted negative career thoughts and career decision-making self-efficacy. Locus of control maintained a weak and non-significant predictive relationship with negative career thoughts or career self-efficacy. Results suggest that sense of coherence may contribute to further understanding of career decidedness in adults. Implications for Industrial/Organisational psychology are discussed. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil.(Industrial and Organisational Psychology)