This study was designed to examine the effectiveness of the following career guidance strategies: career information investigating, job information interviewing, shadowing, panel of positive female role models, parental involvement and group counseling on career maturity and locus of control of high-achieving twelfth-grade females. Participants in this study were thirty-two high-achieving twelfth-grade females currently enrolled in advanced placement English classes, who were currently taking advanced mathematics, advanced science, and advanced foreign language courses; or who had completed three years of advanced mathematics, advanced science, and advanced foreign language courses. The design of this experiment was a pretest-posttest, experimental/control group design. The participants in the treatment group participated in a ten-week career guidance program involving strategies to increase career maturity and improve internal locus of control utilizing the results of the Career Maturity Inventory, Counseling Form B-1 and the Different Situations Inventory. / Ed. D.

Analysis of a particular north-central Texas public high school revealed a strong representation of Hispanic females in advanced academic programs, i.e., AP and GT in proportion to their representation in the overall student population. Research seems to indicate that a progressive approach to academic-potential identification; culturally effective mentoring, traditional Hispanic values, and newly emerging personal and social characteristics all seem to be contributing factors. This study seems to indicate that a new type of Hispanic female is emerging who is more assertive academically, more visible in the classroom, and less marriage-and-family oriented as might be believed by teachers, society, their peers, and perhaps even their parents.