Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology / Kenneth F. Hughey / This study examined the impact of two career interventions on the dysfunctional career thoughts (DCTs) and vocational identity (VI) of 55 high school seniors. Research has shown an inverse relationship between levels of DCTs and VI. One intervention was based on the Cognitive Information Processing approach (Peterson, Sampson, & Reardon, 1991; Peterson, Sampson, Lenz, & Reardon, 2002; Peterson, Sampson, Reardon, & Lenz, 1996; Sampson, Reardon, Peterson, & Lenz, 2004) and incorporated Improving Your Career Thoughts: A Workbook for the Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI workbook; Sampson, Peterson, Lenz, Reardon, & Saunders, 1996c) and the Self-Directed Search (SDS; Holland, 1994). The second intervention employed only the SDS. A control group used neither activity. Levels of DCTs and VI were assessed pre-intervention and post-intervention using the Career Thoughts Inventory (Sampson, Peterson, Lenz, Reardon, & Saunders, 1996a) and the Vocational Identity scale of My Vocational Situation (Holland, Daiger, & Power, 1980a). Earlier studies indicated improvements in levels of dysfunctional career thinking after CIP-based interventions (e.g., Kilk, 1998; Morano, 2005; Reed, 2006), but no previous studies employed the complete CTI workbook. Additional studies (e.g., Loughead & Black, 1990; Mau,1999; Wiggins, 1987) indicated that levels of vocational identity could be increased by using the SDS as an intervention. The combined use of the CTI workbook and SDS produced significant improvements in all five measures of DCTs and VI. It was also shown that use of the SDS as a stand-alone intervention did improve levels of VI, but not to the extent of the improvements shown by combined use of the SDS and CTI workbook. Use of the SDS as a stand-alone intervention did not produce improvements in levels of DCTs. The control group, which employed neither the CTI workbook nor the SDS, unexpectedly showed significant improvements in scores for two CTI scales which may have been due to the influence of confounding variables.

This study is conducted with the aims to develop a new ranking method for multi-criteria decision making problem with conflicting criteria. Such a problem has a set of Pareto solutions, where the act of improving a value of one solution will result in depreciating some of the others. Thus, in this type of problem, there is no unique solution. However, out of many available options, the Decision Maker eventually has to choose only one solution. With this problem as the motivation, the current study develops a compromise ranking algorithm, namely a trade-off ranking method. The trade-off ranking method able to give a trade-off solution with the least compromise compared to other choices as the best solution. The properties of the algorithm are studied in the thesis on several test cases. The proposed method is compared against several multi-criteria decision making methods with ranking based on the distance measure, which are the TOPSIS, relative distance and VIKOR. The sensitivity analysis and uncertainty test are carried out to examine the methods robustness. A critical criteria analysis is also done to test for the most critical criterion in a multi-criteria problem. The decision making method is considered further in a fuzzy environment problem where the fuzzy trade-off ranking is developed and compared against existing fuzzy decision making methods.

<p>As space exploration vehicles travel deeper into space, their distance to earth increases.The increased communication delays and ground personnel costs motivatea migration of the vehicle health management into space. A way to achieve thisis to use a diagnosis system. A diagnosis system uses sensor readings to automaticallydetect faults and possibly locate the cause of it. The diagnosis system usedin this thesis is a model-based reasoning tool called RODON developed by UptimeSolutions AB. RODON uses information of both nominal and faulty behavior ofthe target system mathematically formulated in a model.The advanced diagnostics and prognostics testbed (ADAPT) developed at theNASA Ames Research Center provides a stepping stone between pure researchand deployment of diagnosis and prognosis systems in aerospace systems. Thehardware of the testbed is an electrical power system (EPS) that represents theEPS of a space exploration vehicle. ADAPT consists of a controlled and monitoredenvironment where faults can be injected into a system in a controlled manner andthe performance of the diagnosis system carefully monitored. The main goal of thethesis project was to build a model of the ADAPT EPS that was used to diagnosethe testbed and to generate decision trees (or trouble-shooting trees).The results from the diagnostic analysis were good and all injected faults thataffected the actual function of the EPS were detected. All sensor faults weredetected except faults in temperature sensors. A less detailed model would haveisolated the correct faulty component(s) in the experiments. However, the goal wasto create a detailed model that can detect more than the faults currently injectedinto ADAPT. The created model is stationary but a dynamic model would havebeen able to detect faults in temperature sensors.Based on the presented results, RODON is very well suited for stationary analysisof large systems with a mixture of continuous and discrete signals. It is possibleto get very good results using RODON but in turn it requires an equally goodmodel. A full analysis of the dynamic capabilities of RODON was never conductedin the thesis which is why no conclusions can be drawn for that case.</p><p> </p>

This thesis consists of three self-contained essays dealing with different aspects of macroeconomics and political Economy. The Relative Price of Investment Goods and Sectoral Contract Dependence I develop a quantitative model to explain the relationship between TFPs at the aggregate and sector levels and contracting institutions across countries. The incomplete contract enforcement induces distortions in the production process which come from the “hold up” problem between a final goods firm and its suppliers. Because investment goods sector is more contract dependent, its productivity suffers more from the distortion. In turn, countries endowed with weaker contract enforcement institutions face higher relative prices of investment goods. A Ricardian Model of the Labor Market with Directed Search I analyze how search friction affects the allocation in a Ricardian model of the labor market. The equilibrium shows that the matching pattern is partially mixed: Some tasks are only performed by skilled workers; some are only performed by unskilled workers; the remaining tasks are performed by both skilled and unskilled workers. The mixed matching pattern implies a mismatch in equilibrium. It turns out that the reason for the mismatch has its roots in search friction. In addition, I show labor market institutions have interesting implications for the unemployment rate and mismatch. A Dynamic Analysis of the Free-rider Problem I argue that special interest groups overcome their free-rider problem thanks to distorted government policy. As policy confers monopoly privileges on a group, it can also preserve and promote group’s organization. The key to sustaining the organization of the group is a dynamic incentive: when distorted policy generates rents for a group, each member of the group wish to make contributions not just to raise their rents today; they want to sustain their cooperation so that they will be able to influence policy in the future.

Professional school counselors frequently use career interest inventories as part of a comprehensive guidance program to help students create a post-secondary school plan. The present study evaluates the validity of three commonly used interest inventories, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Self-Directed Search, and Strong Interest Inventory on field of study choice for graduating high school seniors (N = 616) from a large, suburban high school in Texas. Students identified their intended postsecondary field of study category, were randomly assigned using stratification to three groups, and each group completed a different inventory. Group membership was evaluated to establish covariate balance on a wide variety of indicators. Data from each group was evaluated to determine the extent to which the inventory predicted the chosen field of study, as well as Other and Undeclared categories using logistic regression models. None of the inventory models suggest that the inventory accurately predicts Other or Undeclared outcomes. For students selecting intended postsecondary fields of study, the Self Directed Search predicts such outcomes better than other measures. Professional school and career counselors should consider the SDS in addition to narrative counseling strategies to add greater precision with career decision making among clients and students.

Nous prenons l’approche d’annonce des salaires avec la recherche d’emploi à étudier trois problèmes dans le marché du travail. Le premier problème concerne l’arrêt de travail prématuré des travailleurs. Tel arrêt de travail prématuré crée des risques de chiffre d’affaires pour les entreprises, donc les entreprises veulent proposer des profils de salaire pour minimiser ces risques. Dans ce problème, l’asymétrie de l’information joue un rôle important. Nous adoptons une approche du mécanisme design et considérons les différents timings auxquels l’information privée est réalisée. Dans un papier de suivi, nous proposons une politique d’Age spécifique par laquelle cette inefficacité peut être atténuée, et étudions son implication sur le bien-être et la production globale. Dans le deuxième problème, nous revisitons l’analyse du bien-être de l’impact de la discrimination sur le choix des compétences sous une norme d’embauche multidimensionnelle le long des caractéristiques qui sont soit liées à la productivité soit indépendantes de la productivité. Nous montrons comment l’investissement de compétences stratégique entre le groupe favorise et discrimine se pose. Nous comparons également deux mécanismes de détermination des salaires (salaire annoncé et négocié) pour vérifier la robustesse de résultats. Dans le troisième problème, nous considérons dans quelle mesure l’allocation de chômage et le salaire minimum peuvent corriger les répartitions inefficaces découlant du pouvoir de marche des firmes. Notre contexte concerne les petits marchés ou le ratio travailleurs/firmes ne soit pas grand. L’imperfection de marche vient du fait qu’au marché du travail à petite échelle les firmes paient un niveau de salaire moins que le niveau compétitif. Nous procédons à partir d’un point de vue d’organisation industrielle, et proposons en se concentrant sur la mauvaise répartition d’emploi et de surplus lors de l’analyse de l’efficacité de l’instrument de la politique. / We take the wage posting approach with search friction to study three issues in labor market. The first issue concerns the premature quitting of workers. Our framework is suitable for contexts such as disability shock, retirement, maternity leaves etc. Such premature quitting creates turnover risks for firms, hence the firms propose wage profiles to minimize or avoid it. In this issue, the asymmetric information plays an important role. We adopt an approach of mechanism design and consider different timings at which the private information is realized. In a follow-up paper, we propose an age-directed policy by which this inefficiency can be alleviated and study its implication on welfare and aggregate output. In the second issue, we revisit welfare analysis of impact of discrimination on skill choice under a multi-dimensional hiring norm along both productivity-related and -unrelated characteristics. We show how strategic skill investment between favored and discriminated group arise. We compare also two wage determination mechanisms (posted and bargained wage). In the third issue, we consider to which extent can the roles of unemployment benefit and minimum wage correct inefficient allocations arising from firms’ market power. Our context concerns small markets where the workers/firms ratio is not large. The market imperfection comes from the fact that in such a small market firms pay less than competitive level of wages. We proceed from an industrial organizational perspective and suggest focusing on both misallocation of labor and surplus when analyzing the effectiveness of the policy instrument.

The Party Exercise found on countless career guidance websites and popularized by the best-selling, job-hunting book What Color Is Your Parachute (Bolles, 2015) purports to provide an estimate of an individual's Holland's code. This study examines whether this commonly used Party Exercise accurately predicts an individual's Holland's code (Holland, 1997). Undergraduate students (N=473) completed The Party Exercise and then the Self- Directed Search (Holland & Messer, 2013). The results of this study do not support the use of this popular “Party Exercise” as a valid estimate of an individual's Holland code.

O campo dos interesses profissionais é amplo e complexo, circunscrito por diferentes perspectivas teóricas e técnicas, com impacto na construção da carreira dos indivíduos. Nesse contexto, esta pesquisa objetivou caracterizar inclinações e interesses profissionais de estudantes de diferentes níveis de ensino por meio de instrumentos de avaliação psicológica (Teste de Fotos de Profissões, BBT-Br e o Questionário de Busca Autodirigida SDS), bem como avaliar características psicométricas das referidas técnicas de exame na região norte do Brasil. Foram avaliados 729 estudantes provenientes de escolas públicas e particulares da cidade de Manaus (AM), pertencentes ao final do ensino fundamental (9º ano), ensino médio (1ª, 2ª e 3ª séries) e a 3ª série do ensino técnico integrado ao ensino médio, igualmente distribuídos em função do sexo. Os instrumentos (BBT-Br e SDS) foram aplicados no próprio contexto escolar, após as devidas autorizações formais para a pesquisa, incluindo-se também Questionário de Classificação Econômica Brasil para caracterização da amostra. Os resultados, após sistematização padronizada em cada instrumento de avaliação psicológica, foram tratados de modo inicialmente descritivo, para o grupo geral, bem como em função das variáveis: sexo, idade, nível de ensino e origem escolar (pública ou particular). Seguiram-se análises inferenciais dos possíveis efeitos dessas características sócio demográficas sobre as inclinações e os interesses profissionais, bem como a análise de características psicométricas do BBT-Br e SDS. Os resultados do BBT-Br apontaram tendência geral dos interesses dos estudantes (de diferentes níveis de ensino e de ambos os sexos) por atividades que envolvam pensamento abstrato/criativo e senso social/ajuda ao outro (respectivamente representadas pelos radicais G e S). No SDS a tipologia que se destacou, em todos os níveis de ensino, foi o tipo Social (interesses em atividades profissionais de ajuda e ensino) no grupo feminino, e o tipo Empreendedor (liderança, relacionamentos interpessoais e atividades persuasivas) no grupo masculino. Foram detectados padrões específicos na expressão dos interesses de estudantes da região norte em relação aos dados disponíveis do BBT-Br e do SDS para a região sudeste, embora com pontos de convergência motivacional. Sobre as características psicométricas dos instrumentos utilizados, foram identificados bons indicadores de fidedignidade (Alfa de Cronbach para o BBT-Br no sexo feminino foi de 0,84 e, para o sexo masculino, foi de 0,85; no SDS para o sexo feminino foi 0,78 e para o sexo masculino foi 0,79), e também de validade (análise de componentes principais e correlação entre resultados do BBT-Br e do SDS). O estudo contribuiu para a compreensão de características vocacionais e de interesses profissionais de estudantes da cidade de Manaus (AM), comparando-as aos dados disponíveis com estudantes do sudeste do Brasil, demonstrando indicadores positivos de validade das duas versões do BBT-Br e do SDS para uso na região norte. Reflexões foram realizadas, a partir dos achados, no sentido de sugerir processos de orientação vocacional e profissional para os estudantes do 9º ano do ensino fundamental, ensino médio e ensino técnico, para estimular escolhas profissionais que favoreçam a saúde mental e a realização pessoal, em termos científicos e educacionais, de indivíduos dessa região do Brasil. / The field of professional interests is wide and complex, circumscribed by different theoretical and technical perspectives, having impact in the construction of individuals\' career. In this context, this research aimed to describe professional interests and inclinations in students of different levels of education through instruments of psychological assessment (Berufsbilder Test BBT-Br, and Self-Directed Search SDS), as well as assess psychometric characteristics of these measures in the North region of Brazil. The sample was comprised of 729 students from public and private schools in the city of Manaus (AM), that were attending the last year of fundamental school (9th grade), middle school (1st, 2nd and 3rd years) and 3rd year of technical education, equally distributed for gender. Instruments were administered within the school context, after formal authorizations were obtained, along with the Brazil Economic Classification Questionnaire to sample description. The results, after patterned systematization in each instrument, were first analyzed for the description of all sample, on the variables gender, age, school level and school origin (public vs. private school). Following, inferential analysis of possible effects of the sociodemographic profile on professional interests and inclinations were tested, as well as the psychometric properties of BBT-Br and SDS. The results for BBT-Br pointed to a general tendency of students interests (of different educational levels and both sexes) to activities involving abstract/creative reasoning and social sense/help to others (respectively represented by radical G and S). On SDS, the featured typology was the Social type (interest in professional activities of help and teaching), for all school levels, for females group, and Entrepreneur type (leadership, interpersonal relationships, and persuasive activities) for males group. Specific patterns of the expression of interests in the North region emerged in comparison to normative data available of Southeast region, for both tests, with some points of motivational convergence. About psychometric qualities of the measures, good indicators of reliability (Cronbachs alpha of .84 for females and .85 for males on the BBT-Br; and .78 for females and .79 for males on SDS), as well as validity (principal component analysis and correlation between results on BBT-Br and SDS). This study contributes to the comprehension of vocational and professional interests of students in the city of Manaus (AM) when comparing to data available from the Southeast region of Brazil, demonstrating positive indicators of validity for both tests, to its use in the North region context. Some reflections about the data intended to contribute with suggestions about the process of vocational and professional orientation to students of 9th grade of fundamental school, middle school, and technical education, in order to stimulate professional choices that promote mental health and self-fulfillment, scientifically and educationally, for individuals of this region of Brazil.

Cette thèse commence, en théorie, avec le caractère informatif de signaux lorsque l'information est imparfaite, suivis par les applications sur les marchés du crédit et du travail. Dans le chapitre 2 nous montrons que le critère de Blackwell peut impliquer la dispersion des espérances conditionnelles -le critère de « supermodular dispersion » proposé par Ganuza et Penalva (2010), uniquement lorsque le signal est binaire. Les liens entre la dispersion des espérances conditionnelles et le critère de Persico peuvent être construits mais avec des restrictions fortes. Dans le chapitre 3, nous considérons une relation prêteur-emprunteur où les emprunteurs peuvent choisir de divulguer l'information en payant un coût non négligeable. La décision de la révélation d'informations est endogénisée. Nous montrons qu'il existe seulement équilibre opaque (transparent) lorsque le taux d'intérêt sans risque est assez faible (élevé); il y a des équilibres multiples lorsque le taux d'intérêt est intermédiaire et resserrement du crédit peut résulter. Le modèle est ensuite étendu à un contexte OLG et nous montrons que le marché peut converger soit à un état stationnaire opaque ou transparent, et peut avoir des oscillations permanentes entre les états différents pour certaines configurations de paramètres. Dans le chapitre 4, nous étudions l'impact de la discrimination à l'embauche sur les compétences de la décision d'investissement de travailleurs dans un modèle de recherche dirigée. Le groupe discriminé ou le groupe favorisé peut sous-investir dans les compétences à l'équilibre. Chaque fois qu'un groupe de travailleurs sous-investit, l'autre groupe reste hautement qualifié et le profit des entreprises est inférieur par rapport au niveau à l'économie où la discrimination est absente. / This thesis starts, theoretically, with the informativeness of signals when information is imperfect, followed by the applications on the credit and tabor markets. In chapter 2 we show that Blackwell's informativeness criterion can imply the dispersion of the conditional expectations - the supermodular dispersion criterion proposed by Ganuza and Penalva (2010), only when the signal is binary. Links between the dispersion of the conditional expectations and Persico's accuracy criterion can be built up but with strong restrictions. In chapter 3, we consider a lender-borrower relationship where borrowers can choose to disclose their private information by paying a non-negligible cost. The decision of information revelation is endogenized, and so is the market opacity. We show that there exists only opaque (transparent) equilibrium when the safe interest rate is low (high) enough; there are multiple equilibrium when interest rate is intermediate and credit crunch may happen. The model is then extended to an OLG context and we show that the market may converge either to an opaque or a transparent stationary state, or, for some configurations of parameters, have permanent oscillations between different states. In chapter 4 we study the impact of hiring discrimination on workers' skill investment decision in a directed search model. Both the discriminated and favored group can underinvest in skills in equilibrium. Whenever one group underinvest, the other remain high skilled and firms suffer from lower profit compared to the economy where discrimination is absent.

As space exploration vehicles travel deeper into space, their distance to earth increases.The increased communication delays and ground personnel costs motivatea migration of the vehicle health management into space. A way to achieve thisis to use a diagnosis system. A diagnosis system uses sensor readings to automaticallydetect faults and possibly locate the cause of it. The diagnosis system usedin this thesis is a model-based reasoning tool called RODON developed by UptimeSolutions AB. RODON uses information of both nominal and faulty behavior ofthe target system mathematically formulated in a model.The advanced diagnostics and prognostics testbed (ADAPT) developed at theNASA Ames Research Center provides a stepping stone between pure researchand deployment of diagnosis and prognosis systems in aerospace systems. Thehardware of the testbed is an electrical power system (EPS) that represents theEPS of a space exploration vehicle. ADAPT consists of a controlled and monitoredenvironment where faults can be injected into a system in a controlled manner andthe performance of the diagnosis system carefully monitored. The main goal of thethesis project was to build a model of the ADAPT EPS that was used to diagnosethe testbed and to generate decision trees (or trouble-shooting trees).The results from the diagnostic analysis were good and all injected faults thataffected the actual function of the EPS were detected. All sensor faults weredetected except faults in temperature sensors. A less detailed model would haveisolated the correct faulty component(s) in the experiments. However, the goal wasto create a detailed model that can detect more than the faults currently injectedinto ADAPT. The created model is stationary but a dynamic model would havebeen able to detect faults in temperature sensors.Based on the presented results, RODON is very well suited for stationary analysisof large systems with a mixture of continuous and discrete signals. It is possibleto get very good results using RODON but in turn it requires an equally goodmodel. A full analysis of the dynamic capabilities of RODON was never conductedin the thesis which is why no conclusions can be drawn for that case.