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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/3912 |
| Date | 16 August 2006 |
| Creators | Owre, Martha Leonora |
| Contributors | Garcia, Gonzalo Jr., Parrish, Linda H. |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | 862217 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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