D.Litt. et Phil. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.Ed. (Educational Management) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

This study is concerned with the problem of occupational choices of high school students and the interplay of the various factors which enter into those choices.

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Counselors and psychotherapists have urged for a number of years that the interaction between client and treatment characteristics be examined. All clients are not expected to benefit equally from one particular style of treatment. Although client-method interactions have been investigated in therapy contexts, little has been done to examine the effects of interaction on career decision making. The present study was concerned with the interaction between a client variable, locus of control, and a treatment variable, group structure. Subjects were fifty-five community college students enrolled in a career development course. Two intervention styles were designed; one stressing a structured, systematic approach, the other emphasizing self and environmental exploration in an unstructured context. Subjects were classified as internals or externals using Rotter's Internal-External Scale. Career decision making was assessed both before and after treatment by the Assessment of Career Decision Making (ACDM). The ACDM quantifies the stages of decision making hypothesized by Tiedeman and O'Hara (1963). Results indicated that the mean ACDM decision making task scores for college major and occupation were higher after treatment than before, regardless of intervention structure. Comparison of the two intervention styles, however, revealed that the means for unstructured groups on the College Major Decision Making Task were higher than those in the structured group (p < .08). Investigation of the levels within each decision making task uncovered that an interaction between locus of control and group structure had effected the scores of the Clarification stage of the College Major Decision Making Task and of the Choice stage of the Occupational Decision Making Task. While significant (p < .06) the interaction was in an unexpected direction. Internals tended to have high decision scores after exposure to the structured intervention and externals tended to have higher scores after having been in unstructured groups. Additional analyses pointed out that the importance an individual places on making decisions is the best predictor of post intervention decision making scores. / Ed. D.

The purpose of this study was to develop a comprehensive career interest inventory based on Super's (1980, 1984) Life Span, Life Space Theory of Career Development, and McDaniels' (1983) concept of Career = Work + Leisure (C = W + L). Career counselors increasingly have recognized the importance of a developmental perspective (Seligman, 1980; Super, 1983) and the inclusion of leisure as an integral component of one's career (Blocher & Siegal, 1984; Edwards, 1984; McDaniels, 1984). The results of this study produced a one hundred and twenty item interest inventory which can be used in career counseling, leisure counseling, or in a holistic approach. The Career Exploration Inventory (CEI) is an innovative instrument which measures developmental work and leisure interests from the past, in the present, and those anticipated in the future. The instrument is a self-administered, scored, and interpreted interest inventory for guided career exploration. Norms were developed for the CEI using two separate norm groups: unemployed/underemployed adults (N=104) and employed adults (N=106) ranging in age from eighteen to seventy-three. Validity of the CEI was comparable to existing work and leisure interest inventories. Coefficient alpha internal consistency measures ranged from .56 to .84, while subjects' top scores for the interest categories were consistent with their work and leisure activities 43 to 51 % of the time. The CEI correctly identified sustained, developmental interests for work (54%) and leisure (67%). Test-retest reliability measures for the eEl ranged from .80 to .92 over a three month period of time. The results of this study verified the utility of a developmental instrument which measures an individual's work and leisure interests over time. Many subjects reported the instrument's accuracy in measuring "true" continuing interests, rather than just current interests. / Ed. D.