Career Development Quarterly最新文献

In an era of rapid economic, technological, and social change, young people face increased challenges in making informed career decisions. This study, grounded in Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) and Career Construction Theory (CCT), examines the personal and environmental factors influencing career expectation uncertainty among 15-year-olds across 78 educational systems. Results of multilevel logistic models revealed that approximately 20% of adolescents, particularly young men and those in advanced economies, experienced more uncertainty about their career expectations. Notably, the search for meaning in life appeared crucial in forming clearer career goals, especially among young women in affluent countries. Additionally, self-efficacy and parental support enhanced clarity in young men's career choices, while teacher support was crucial for adolescents’ career decision-making in developing economies. These insights underscore the need for targeted support tailored to diverse socioeconomic contexts to promote clearer career trajectories for adolescents globally.

This study investigated how avoidance motivation, which entails a fear of failure and focus on avoiding negative outcomes, influences adolescents’ aspirations toward scientific research careers. Participants consisted of 245 high school students participating in a summer science enrichment program. Results of a hierarchical regression analysis indicated that failure avoidance relative to the conduct of scientific tasks was a significant negative predictor of research career intentions after controlling for academic ability, cognitive capacity to regulate general interest, and online versus in-person programming implemented before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results of post hoc probing also revealed a significant interaction between failure avoidance and inconsistency of interest whereby participants with low inconsistency of interest and high failure avoidance reported the lowest level of research career intentions. Our findings aim to inform strategies to support sustained engagement and motivation among prospective science undergraduates, contributing to the broader discourse on science career development.

Career decision-making self-efficacy (CDMSE) is an important resource that can reduce the uncertainty that career starters face when transitioning from education to work. However, scant knowledge is available on how CDMSE can be enhanced through character strengths interventions. In this project, an online strengths intervention was developed to help career starters increase their CDMSE by identifying, exploring, appreciating, and using their happiness strengths (curiosity, gratitude, hope, love, and zest). A field experiment was conducted with 55 career starters in the Netherlands who were randomly assigned to an online three-week intervention (N = 23) or a wait-list control group (N = 32). Using a pretest-posttest design, it was found that the intervention positively influenced participants’ CDMSE, particularly their self-appraisal and problem-solving levels. Therefore, activating happiness strengths in an online strengths intervention might be used as a brief and effective tool to improve CDMSE (self-appraisal and problem-solving) among career starters.

The Talent Identification and Career Exploration (TICE) program, funded by a Jacob K. Javits grant, focuses on increasing underrepresented students’ participation in gifted and talented programs. Early identification for gifted and talented programs expands student learning experiences, and when students from marginalized groups are not identified, they are denied equal opportunity to maximize their potential and enter the appropriate career path. This study focused on sixth- and seventh-grade students from a predominantly rural midwestern state who participated in TICE from 2020 to 2022. Students engaged in four modules focused on sensemaking of their strengths and potential future career matches. This mixed-methods study used student feedback to understand the relationship between students’ feelings of belonging and learning format on student enjoyment of the modules. Results show that students’ sense of belonging was a significant predictor of student enjoyment for two of the four modules, and learning format was not a significant predictor of student enjoyment. Qualitative data revealed students valued working with each other and learned about themselves and careers for which they would be a potential match. Findings from the study can be applied to inform the development, implementation, and evaluation of school-based career interventions for talented student populations.

Despite the importance of students exploring career options, developing career readiness, and experiencing a successful transition to the workforce, historically excluded populations’ participation in career development remains low. Additionally, career development professionals continue to feel unsupported in their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices and in incorporating DEI in their respective roles. This multicase study uncovers a mirage approach to the work of career development professionals, providing opportunities to engage in this work, yet largely leaving DEI work unsupported in their quest to incorporate it into their spaces. Results indicate the larger impacts of navigating a lack of support as well as the oppressive intuitional structures that persist while engaging in DEI pedagogy and praxis.

An understanding of the demands of the contemporary world of work may help guide policy- and decision-making processes. However, despite the importance of this understanding, few studies have attempted to examine the universe of available occupations to determine the most in-demand knowledge, skills, abilities, and other worker characteristics (KSAOs) as well as the relative demands of these KSAOs across occupations. This study addresses the first concern by calculating weighted averages that rely on the Occupational Information Network's (O*NET's) data on worker requirements and characteristics and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS’) employment counts. Furthermore, this study leverages the power of latent profile analyses to identify numerous workplace profiles, allowing us to uncover the extent to which KSAOs are demanded in relation to each other. Key findings suggest that the competencies relating to communication, business, technology, and cognition were among the most highly demanded KSAOs in the labor market. Additionally, identified KSAO profiles indicated that the rank ordering of KSAO level requirements differed across large sections of the labor market, indicating that the rank orderings proposed by the weighted averages were not consistent across the occupations examined. In sum, the findings of this study provide vital occupational information that contributes to our understanding of the KSAOs that are expected from the prospective workforce. In the context of career guidance, such information may assist career counselors and other guidance professionals in describing the world of work to their clients, thereby empowering them to make more educated career development choices that will improve their employability within the extant labor market.

Building on the self-determination theory and the work of Pelletier and their colleagues, we conducted a study to examine the antecedents of mentors’ interpersonal behaviors. The purpose of this study was to determine how influence from above (administrative, practice, and colleagues’ pressures) and influence from below (perception of mentees’ level of self-determined motivation) were related to the mentors’ motivations for their work and the mentoring relationship, and how the mentors’ motivations were related to their interpersonal behaviors. In the present study (N = 600), the results of a cross-sectional design showed that mentors who perceived greater influence from above and lower influence from below were more non-self-determined toward their work and the mentoring relationship. In turn, the more non-self-determined they were, the more they were acting in a controlling manner with their mentees. Overall, our findings supported the independent and complementary role of influences from above and from below on mentors’ motivations and interpersonal behaviors.

Based on the Psychology of Working Theory, this study examined the influence of contextual factors and psychosocial resources on school-to-work transition. Data were collected from 781 senior university students in Türkiye, and the relationships between economic constraints, marginalization, general self-efficacy, career adaptability, perceived future employability, and future decent work were examined. According to the results, economic constraints and marginalization negatively predicted perceived future employability and future decent work. Marginalization significantly predicted general self-efficacy and career adaptability, whereas economic constraints were not associated with two psychosocial resources. General self-efficacy significantly predicted career adaptability, while it was not related to perceived future employability and future decent work. Career adaptability significantly predicted perceived future employability but not future decent work. Lastly, perceived future employability significantly predicted future decent work. The findings revealed the significant influence of contextual factors on the school-to-work transition. Implications and suggestions for future research directions were also discussed.

This study examines how idiosyncratic deals (I-deals) affect older workers’ preferred retirement age. Drawing on basic psychological needs theory, we specifically investigate the role of need satisfaction at work in explaining this relationship. By means of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM), our hypotheses were tested in a sample of 4234 employees aged 65 years or older in a large public-sector organization in Sweden. The findings suggest that employees with negotiated I-deals concerning schedule flexibility or financial incentives experienced greater need satisfaction and preferred to retire later than those without such deals. Additionally, task and work responsibility deals were shown to directly and positively predict retirement preferences. This study offers new insights into how I-deals could delay the preferred retirement by fulfilling basic psychological needs. It may thereby inform interventions to increase need satisfaction at work and the implementation of policies for recruiting and retaining older workers.

Parents greatly affect youth's vocational and educational development. The objective of the study was to investigate how parental support in career development affects adolescents’ learning engagement and the mediating effects of four career adaptability aspects and life meaning. The participants were 516 high school students from Guangdong, China. The study found that: (1) Career-related parental support had a positive impact on learning engagement; (2) career confidence and life meaning acted as mediators connecting career-related parental support with learning engagement; and (3) there was a chain mediation path among career-related parental support, career concern, control, and confidence, life meaning, and learning engagement. Our findings add to the prevailing literature by confirming and extending self-determination theory as well as career development and systems theory. Based on these findings, we hope that schools and parents may implement some interventions to promote the academic engagement of students.