A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (Clinical Psychology) in the Department of Psychology at the University Of Zululand, South Africa, 2013 / The study used a mixed methods methodology to investigate the factors that influence university students’ career decisions. This was motivated by the fact that students in disadvantaged communities are challenged by the negative socio-political conditions that resulted from the South African Apartheid system and these conditions limited the resources for people in disadvantaged communities. As more opportunities became available, it is vital that students entering tertiary education are equipped with the necessary skills and support to make informed career decisions. The sample consisted of 155 third year students from four faculties at the University of Zululand. Data was collected using a questionnaire. The data was analysed using a systematic approach. The results indicated that the factors influencing influence university students’ career decisions are the students’ educational background, home background, parental marital status parental occupation socio- economic status, the love for their careers, financial aid and high employment opportunities. The dissertation concludes that appropriate career education and guidance are essential for previously disadvantaged tertiary education students in order for them to maximize the opportunities available to them.

The tourism industry is often viewed as an industry in which one would not want to be employed. This negative stigma is cause for concern when youth are beginning to make career decisions. The purpose of this study was to examine student perceptions of the tourism industry, factors that influence them to pursue a tourism career path, and their participation in a tourism-related education program. Little research exists regarding tourism career development and degree program persistence, and available literature is largely quantitative in nature. A follow-up explanatory sequential mixed methods design was used in this study. Surveys were distributed to students enrolled in tourism-related programs at six American universities; data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Based on findings, four focus groups were held at one university. Results suggested that while students had positive perceptions about the tourism industry, it was not typically their first career choice. Industry experience and specific job characteristics were highly influential on the career decision process. Five themes emerged from the qualitative data analysis; common factors that influence career choice, lack of awareness of tourism-related degree programs, relevance of experience and internships, common areas of program satisfaction, and suggested improvements programs. The implications of this study for educators, industry leaders, and parents are many. Recognizing factors that influence a student to enter a tourism-related career help educators pinpoint where and, to an extent, how to disseminate information about the tourism industry and related educational programs. This information may also be useful for industry leaders as they seek to obtain trained employees, whereas they can determine outlets at which to create awareness of this industry.

This focus of the current study is the role of meaning in life with respect to career decision and anxiety. It was hypothesized that: (1) There is a negative correlation between career decidedness and anxiety; (2) Meaning in life mediates the relationship between career decidedness and state anxiety; and (3) The relationship between career decidedness and state anxiety will be moderated by the search for meaning in life. Participants consisted of undergraduate students at a large Midwestern university. Measures include: the Career Decision Scale (CDS; Osipow et al., 1976), the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ; Steger et al., 2006), and the State-Trait Inventory for Cognitive and Somatic Anxiety (STICSA; Ree et al., 2000). The results indicate that the presence of meaning in life mediates the relationships between career decidedness and anxiety. However, the results did not support the hypothesis that the search for meaning in life moderates the relationship between career decidedness and anxiety. Future research and practical implications are also discussed.

During the past few decades, research on student retention has been primarily focused on the constructs of social integration, lack of financial support and academic under-preparedness (Astin, 1975; Bean & Metzner, 1985; Cabrera, 1993; Pascarella,1982; Tinto, 1975). This study examined the phenomenal occurrence of low retention due to "lack of major and career direction." The Career Decision Scale and the Achievement Motivation Profile assessments were administered to 105 students at a comprehensive community college. Six linear regressions were conducted to determine if there were statistical relationships between:(a) career decision and the motivation to persist and; (b) career indecision and the lack of motivation to persist. Of the three regressions conducted on career decision and motivation to persist; two of the scores from the motivation profile indicated that a statistical relationship existed, whereas the third score did not. Of the three regressions conducted on career indecision and the lack of motivation to persist; two scores from the motivation profile indicated a statistical relationship between career indecision and the lack of motivation to persist, whereas the third score was not statistically significant. Recommendations were made to community colleges and universities to cultivate an environment where major and career decision initiatives become a top priority for students. Suggestions included creating courses in career planning and one-on-one career counseling sessions.

This exploratory qualitative study seeks to describe and understand the career decision-making process of unemployed American women who make up the younger cohort of the baby boom generation, namely those born between 1955 and 1964. Career decision making is a complex process involving a number of generational characteristics as well as personal and economic considerations. Unemployment further complicates this process, especially in the decade prior to receiving retirement benefits. This study uses interpretative phenomenological analysis to analyze semi-structured interviews with eight unemployed younger baby boom women to investigate how their thoughts, assumptions, and opinions affect their career decision-making experience. Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model (2005), Erikson's lifespan theory (1959), and selected career development theories provide lenses through which these women's experiences can be understood. Eight themes emerged from the data, including the following: unemployment as a preparation period; career aspirations; digital natives; age discrimination; bioecological systems influence; generativity vs. stagnation; identity expressed in career decision making; and influence of intuition, chance, and personal factors. The findings suggest that the women used the period of unemployment to become self-aware and thoughtful about future career decision making, and enhance their computer as well as career decision making skills. Implications for theory and counseling practice as well as suggestions for future research are provided. / School of Education; / Counselor Education and Supervision (ExCES) / PhD; / Dissertation;

The problem of this study concerned the factors involved in the selection of medical technology as a major. The purposes of the study were to determine (a) the most influential factors in the selection of medical technology as a career, (b) which sources of career information were the most frequently utilized and most influential in the choice of medical technology as a major, (c) the most common misperceptions of the field at the time of selection of the major, and (d) the relationship between accurate perceptions of the field at the time of major selection and satisfaction with the choice of major after employment.

This longitudinal study examined the relationship between Zimbardo time perspectives (TPs) and career decision-making self-efficacy (CDMSE). In total, 1,753 young adults participated in the longitudinal study. For the present study, we selected only participants who were students and provided information on TPs, CDMSE, and sociodemographic characteristics (n = 492, M = 22.97 years, SD = 1.32, 82.9% women). The results of multilevel modeling showed that future orientation and present-hedonistic TPs were positively related to CDMSE, whereas present-fatalistic and past-negative TPs were negatively related to CDMSE. These findings indicate that besides the beneficial effect of widely studied future TP, the negative role of past-negative and present-fatalistic TPs should be considered in connection with the career development of emerging adults.

The study was designed to obtain information that would be of value to secondary school personnel who provide career counseling and guidance to high school students preparing for post-secondary education, training, and employment. The study attempted to determine if African-American, Anglo, and Hispanic students varied significantly on characteristics that could potentially inhibit career decision-making. The characteristics investigated included career indecision and self-efficacy. Participants included 74 sophomore and senior students from three rural high schools in South Central Texas. Two research questions were investigated to determine if there were significant differences among Anglo, African-American, and Hispanic students on measures of career indecision and self-efficacy. A third research question was investigated to determine if significant differences existed on measures of career indecision and self-efficacy by ethnicity, gender, and grade level, as well as for the interaction of ethnicity, gender, and grade level. A supplementary analysis of the three research questions was conducted including school as an independent variable. The Career Decision Scale and Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale were administered to the participants and the data were analyzed with ANOVA and MANOVA statistical tests. No significant differences were obtained for the three research questions. When the school variable was included in the data analysis, significant main effects differences were found for grade level on self-efficacy and for school on career indecision. The combination of ethnic groups, genders, and grade levels indicated significant differences for the interaction of gender and grade level on self-efficacy and for the interaction of ethnicity and gender on self-efficacy. Middle to high levels of career indecision were reported by 90% of the seniors and 79% of all students in the study. The researcher recommended that career interventions would be valuable to sophomores and seniors in helping them prepare for post-secondary career choices.

The subject of this thesis, career choice for young adults with (specific) learning disabilities, deals with two main issues. The first concerns the decision-making difficulties of young adults with learning disabilities as compared with their nondisabled peers. The second and major part of this thesis, deals with the development and validation of a self-report screening method for identifying those are likely to be at risk of being learning disabled. The primary purpose of this device is to provide career counsellors and other professionals, who generally receive only superficial training in the area of specific learning disabilities, with a tool for identifying individuals likely to have learning disabilities. It is important to emphasise from the outset that screening is not diagnosis. Even a very good screening tool can at best identify those at high risk for LDS. Also screening may identify problem areas but no information is available regarding aetiology or source of the problems. Finally screening is necessary because a large section of the population has been identified as potentially containing large numbers of LDS (Singleton et al. 1998). However, before beginning the research, a thorough review of the issues of definition that plague the field is undertaken. While the issues raised cannot be resolved in this thesis, they form a necessary background to the research done. In principle, learning disabilities are understood to be characterised by poor automisation of learning skills due to neurological malfunction, contrasted by at least average intelligence. Therefore the goal of screening is to identify the presence of these difficulties, while explanation of their causes remains the proper area of expertise of diagnosticians who bear the onus of showing evidence of neurological malfunction. The present research, then, is three-phased. First, the Career Decision Difficulties (CDD) questionnaire (Gati et al. 1996) is applied to establish empirical support for the hypothesis that young adults with specific learning disabilities have greater difficulties making career decisions than their non-disabled peers do and to identify problem areas of particular difficulty for these young adults. The second phase of the research is based on the assumption that the majority of adults with specific learning disabilities have not been diagnosed and are unaware of the reasons for study problems that they encounter. Against this background, a parsimonious and easily administered screening device is needed. The second part of the thesis focuses on the development and validation of a self-report model - the Strengths and Weaknesses Academic Profile (SWAP) - and a questionnaire based on it, and their use as a counselling tool. The questionnaire based on the SWAP model was administered to a sample of about 500 young adults in Israel studying in preacademic schemes, of which 117 were previously diagnosed as learning disabled. The data was then analysed for validation. Finally, the results were normed on a larger sample of just over 900. The third phase was undertaken in order to address outstanding issues of validation resulting from the inherent methodological weakness of the Israeli research, a further sample was tested in Sheffield, UK. Unlike the Israeli sample, the non-diagnosed were tested to reveal any hidden dyslexics and they were subsequently removed from the control group. I present here an epidemiological sample validating a research tool in a real life scenario. In order to check the construct validity of this tool, a stricter research definition of LD was adopted, and the same process was undertaken using a well-defined sample known to be dyslexic and non-dyslexic. In conclusion, the results of this empirical demonstration show that the SWAP model predicts to a satisfactory degree those individuals who are at high risk of dyslexia. This thesis combines the strengths of an experimental qualitative approach with those of a quantitative empirical approach. In the main sample, the Israeli sample, scores were normed and converted into percentiles. Preliminary data regarding the predictive success of the use of SWAP for referral for diagnosis is presented. In addition, several case studies are included as examples of the use of SWAP as a counselling tool.

abstract: ABSTRACT Perfectionism has been conceptualized as a relatively stable, independent, multidimensional personality construct in research during the last two decades. Despite general agreement that perfectionism is dimensional in nature, analyses using these instruments vacillate between a dimensional approach and a categorical approach (Broman-Fulks, Hill, & Green, 2008; Stoeber & Otto, 2006). The goal of the current study was two-fold. One aim was to examine the structural nature of two commonly used measures of perfectionism, the APS-R and the HFMPS. Latent class and factor analyses were conducted to determine the dimensions and categories that underlie the items of these two instruments. A second aim was to determine whether perfectionism classes or perfectionism factors better predicted 4 criterion variables of career indecision. Results lent evidence to the claim that both the APS-R and HFMPS are best used as dimensional, rather than categorical instruments. From a substantive perspective, results indicated that both positive and negative aspects of perfectionism successfully predicted career indecision factors. The study concludes with a discussion of limitations, and implications for future research and counseling individuals with career indecision concerns. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Counseling Psychology 2013