How do children's career aspirations come to reflect the social inequalities among
their elders? One theorist, Linda S. Gottfredson, 1996 was interested in explaining how
at-risk children come to define themselves professionally and found that career choice
is an effort to position oneself in the extensive social order in which the most public,
social aspects (i.e., gender, social class, intelligence) play an integral part in this
process, rather than the more personal, private elements (i.e., values, personality,
siblings, family plans). Given this information, the next question would be, how do we
break the cycle of underachievement, poverty, and under education of at-risk youth, so
that they can develop educational and career goals that are most suited to their values,
interests and abilities? The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of a
Cognitive Information Processing (CIP) intervention structured by a standard
decision-making tool, the Career Decision Making Tool (CDMT) on the career
decision-state of at-risk youth. Impact is defined as the total effects, intentional and
unintentional, of administering a human service intervention. Furthermore, the career
decision state is defined in terms of (a) the extent to which individuals are certain of
their educational and occupational choices and (b)their degree of satisfaction with
their choice at a given moment in time (Bullock, Peterson, Lierer & Reardon, 2009).
More simply, career decision state is defined in terms of career decidedness (certainty)
and satisfaction. This study was implemented as part of an existing summer,
community-based prevention and health promotion program, Project K.I.C.K. (Kids in
Cooperation with Kids), housed within a local Boy's and Girl's Club. While seventy-five
youth participated in some of the intervention activities, complete data were available
for forty-six participants. Forty-six predominately African American (83%) adolescent
youth, ages 11 – 18, attending summer camp at a Boy's and Girl's Club in a medium-sized
community in North Florida participated in the intervention. The goals of the CIP
interventions are to ensure that the youth are: a) given information and experiences to
broaden their educational and career knowledge base; b) prepared to make an informed
choice of career; and c) are equipped to develop an educational plan conducive to
attaining their career aspirations. The results of this study indicated that, with
respect to the development of the occupational goal decision state in terms of
decidedness, certainty, or satisfaction, the means did not vary significantly across the
observations, pretest, pretest, and posttest. Thus, collectively, the CIP intervention
appeared to have no impact on these participants' choice of occupational goal. However,
the chi-square ratios pertaining to frequencies of decidedness indicated there was a
significant shift (p ≤ .05, χ2 = 32.01, df = 6) in the level of decidedness from pretest
2 to the posttest in that 5 participants indicated a first choice of occupation on the
second pretest, but no participants indicated a first choice on the posttest. Thus,
there was a shift toward becoming more undecided in terms of occupational goal. With
regard to level of educational choice, satisfaction with choice, and certainty of
choice, the CIP intervention had no significant impact on the participants' educational
goal decision state. Nonetheless, there were changes from the second pretest to the
posttest in terms of frequencies of individuals endorsing "Don't know" and "BA/BS
degrees," with the former increasing by 8 participants and the latter decreasing by 8
participants. Thus, as with the case of occupational goals, there is a shift toward
becoming more undecided in terms of educational goal as a result of participation in the
CIP intervention. On a four-point helpfulness scale where 1 = not helpful, 2 = somewhat
helpful, 3 = helpful, and 4 very helpful, the participants expressed that the vast
majority of activities were helpful to very helpful in formulating their educational and
occupational goals. With respect to the entire CDMT experience in terms of satisfaction,
the participants indicated that they were satisfied with the facilitation of educational
goals and occupational goals. In conclusion, the implementation of a CIP intervention
structured by the CDMT appeared to provide an "awakening" experience for many of the
participants regarding educational and occupational opportunities. The majority of the
participants enjoyed the activities and expressed satisfaction regarding their impact on
their educational and occupational goals. It appeared that this was an effective career
intervention that could be improved with additional emphasis on preparing for field
trips and in processing the experience afterward. The participant's responses to this
career intervention were highly encouraging. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning
Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2010. / Date of Defense: April 8, 2010. / Career, Decision State, Cognitive Information Processing, At-risk Youth / Includes bibliographical references. / James, P. Sampson, Professor Directing Dissertation; Carol Darling, University Representative; Gary W. Peterson, Committee Member; Susan B. Losh, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_168443 |
| Contributors | Shelby, Tracy L. (authoraut), James (professor directing dissertation), Darling, Carol (university representative), Peterson, Gary W. (committee member), Losh, Susan B. (committee member), Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
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