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Description
The author presents professional literature published in 2006 related to career counseling and development. The literature is organized into 3 sections: (a) professional issues related to career development throughout the life span, culture, ethnicity, gender, and other specific topics; (b) research related to theoretical and conceptual advances; and (c) career interventions and practice, including issues related to career assessment and technology. Cohesive themes throughout this review are the concepts of social context embedded in career development, multicultural perspectives, and global and international perspectives of career development. Research is encouraged regarding career interventions that are based on career theories specific to certain cultures and in general for global needs.
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The annual review organizes the professional career literature published in 2006. This review of the literature was challenging, and I did not realize how overwhelming this task would be until I became immersed in the process. Despite my being overwhelmed, constant learning occurred and made my teaching and supervision work abundant. To make the literature review meaningful for career researchers and practitioners alike, I tried to be succinct in searching for and including articles to be reviewed. The search, therefore, was not exhaustive. Each article published in The Career Development Quarterly, Journal of Career Development, Journal of Career Assessment, Journal of Vocational Behavior, and Journal of Employment Counseling was read. Next, a keyword search was conducted on all journals published by the American Counseling Association and on certain journals published by the American Psychological Association. Career-related articles from the Journal of Counseling & Development, Professional School Counseling, Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, Journal of Counseling Psychology, The Counseling Psychologist, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, Journal of College Counseling, Journal of College Student Development, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, and Psychological Reports have also been included in this review. During the literature search process, I noticed that there was an increase in the number of studies concerning career counseling in organizational settings and in career coaching. Thus, some relevant career-related articles from Human Resource Management Review, the Journal of Organizational Behavior, Human Relations, and Organizational Dynamics have also been included. Finally, a search was conducted of PsycINFO using a set of selected career development terms that identified a few additional articles of interest from the Journal of Business and Psychology, the Journal of Social Service Research, Sociology, The Policy Studies Journal, the Journal of Labor Research, the Counseling Psychology Quarterly, the Australian Journal of Psychology, the Journal of Addictions and Offender Counseling, and the Journal of Aging Studies. No books, book chapters, monographs, or electronic media are included in this review. Ultimately, this annual review covers 134 articles that were published in 2006 in refereed professional journals.
The 2006 career counseling and development review is organized into three broad areas: (a) professional issues; (b) career theory and concepts; and (c) career interventions and practice, including career assessment and technology. This review differs from the previous reviews in that career assessment and technology were considered types of interventions because there was a limited number of new assessment instruments developed in the past year. The literature this year seemed to focus more on examination of career intervention programs than in previous years. In addition, in organizing this review, I chose to discuss each article in only one of the three areas, although it was clear that many articles could have been presented in more than one area.
Professional Issues
Life Span Development
Youth and adolescents. Jacobs, Chhin, and Bleeker examined the relationship between parents' expectations and their young adult children's gender-typed occupational choices. The results indicated that parents' gender-typed occupational expectations were significantly related to their children's own expectations and to the children's actual career choices. In addition, job satisfaction was significantly related to having a gender-typed career. These findings suggest that parents' early gender-typed expectations for their children's occupational achievements are highly related to the actual occupational decisions made by their adult children.
Kenny, Blustein, Haase, Jackson, and Perry conducted a longitudinal study assessing the relationship between indices of career development (career planfulness and career expectations) and school engagement (belonging and valuing). The data were examined through structural equation modeling for a multiethnic sample of urban ninth-grade students. Higher levels of career planfulness and expectations at the beginning of the academic year were associated with increases in school engagement over the course of the year. The observed relationship between career planfulness and expectations and school engagement is consistent with emerging models of career development (e.g., Lapan, 2004) that seek to explicate the value of career development programming as a component of educational reform.
Career development for students at the junior high level has drawn more attention in recent years. According to Super's theory, high school students span two of the life stages: growth and exploration. For these students, a comprehensive career program that included self-concept construction was important for career development. Bardick, Bernes, Magnusson, and Witko assessed the career plans of junior high school students in South Alberta in Canada. They found that junior high students intended to combine full-time or part-time postsecondary education with part-time work. The students were also confident about achieving their future career goals. Bardick et al. concluded that students as young as 11 years old would be ready to seriously consider their future career plans. Therefore, this study suggested that career planning programs need to begin at the junior high school level.
Taga, Markey, and Friedman examined boys' pubertal timing and subsequent interpersonal success in midadulthood. Data from 460 boys from another longitudinal study (the Terman Life-Cycle Study) were examined over a 39-year period to relate age of pubertal onset to later marital success, career success, and adult health behaviors. The results indicated that boys who reached puberty earlier than their peers tended to achieve greater success in their careers and experienced more satisfaction in their marriages.
Diemer and Blustein explored the role of critical consciousness as a key factor in predicting progress in career development among urban high school students. Critical consciousness was operationally defined as the capacity to recognize and overcome sociopolitical barriers through sociopolitical analysis and sociopolitical control. Canonical correlation analysis indicated a statistically significant relationship between critical consciousness and progress in career development. Participants with greater levels of critical consciousness had greater clarity regarding their vocational identity, were more committed to their future careers, and viewed work as a larger part of their future lives. These results suggest that urban adolescents may best engage in the career development process by maintaining a critical awareness of sociopolitical inequity and situating their individual agency within this critical "reading" of the opportunity structure.
Osborn and Reardon administered the Self-Directed Search (SDS) to 98 high-risk middle school students, who attended one of the 14 structured career groups based on the Cognitive Information Process career theory (Peterson, Sampson, Lenz, & Reardon, 2002). The results indicated that the SDS was a psychometrically sound instrument for middle school students, especially those who were identified as being at risk of dropping out of school. For those students, it seemed to be particularly important to make the connection between school and the world of work to develop interpersonal relationship and to increase occupational knowledge.
Shapka, Domene, and Keating applied growth curve modeling to trace the trajectory of the prestige dimension of career aspirations from Grade 9 through 3 years post-high school as a function of gender and early high school mathematics achievement. The sample consisted of 218 university-bound adolescents (129 female, 89 male). The findings support the notion that mathematics achievement functions as a "critical filter" to subsequent career aspirations, with youth who performed poorly in Grade 9 mathematics aspiring to careers that were of lower prestige.
To help increase access to educational and occupational options for a growing yet underrepresented population of low-income, culturally diverse, urban middle school students, Jackson, Potere, and Brobst investigated factors related to students' career development. The results support some applications of Krumboltz's social learning theory to at-risk urban youth. They found a significant and positive association between participants' successful learning experiences and their expressed occupational interests. A positive association between career self-efficacy beliefs and inventoried occupational interests was also significant. However, no association was found between participants' successful learning experiences and their highest or most ideal occupational aspirations.
Germeijs and Verschueren conducted a longitudinal study to investigate high school students' process of choosing a major in higher education. A sample of 535 adolescents participated at the beginning, middle, and end of Grade 12. Latent curve modeling revealed evidence for a mean developmental increase in the career decisional tasks of orientation, exploration, decisional status, and commitment. The results indicated that the growth trajectories were in line with theoretical models in which orientation and broad exploration were important at the beginning of the career decision-making process, whereas in-depth exploration and decisional status were considered important later on. Furthermore, the results showed substantial variability between adolescents in the initial levels of career decisional tasks and in their rate of change.
College students. Fouad et al. examined the needs of career services for university students with psychological distress or difficulties with career decisions. Their awareness of the services offered by the campus counseling and career services was also examined. Findings indicated that students expressed difficulties with career decisions, high levels of psychological distress, and low levels of psychological well-being. Only about half of the students surveyed were aware of career services, and much fewer had used those services. For career-undecided students, there were relationships between psychological distress and career-related variables. Career services on university campuses were found to be important tools for those students. This article suggests that campus counseling and career services need to provide appropriate mediators for students with psychological distress or difficulty with career decisions to increase their awareness and usage of the services offered.
Reese and Miller investigated the effects of a career development course on college student career decision-making self-efficacy. A pretest-post-test nonequivalent group design compared students who completed the course (n = 30) with a quasi-control group of students who were enrolled in an introductory psychology course (n = 66). The results indicated that students who completed the career course showed increased career decision-making self-efficacy overall, specifically in the areas of obtaining occupational information, setting career goals, and career planning. The career course appeared to lower perceived career decision difficulties as well.
The concept of collective efficacy was noticed by Lent, Schmidt, and Schmidt. They developed a collective efficacy measure and administered it to undergraduates working in project teams in engineering courses. Findings revealed that the measure consisted of a single factor and was related to ratings of team cohesion and personal efficacy. Collective efficacy was also found to be related to indicators of team performance at both individual and group levels of analysis. Lent et al. asserted that collective efficacy was a stronger predictor of team performance than team members' perceptions of their self-efficacy.
Rehfuss and Borges indicated that many counselors today challenge the assumption that a career choice based on others' expectations is problematic. They conducted a longitudinal study using a logistic regression analysis to determine whether self-directed or other-directed status, as measured by the Thematic Apperception Test, related to success with which individuals enacted career choices. The participants were 433 students enrolled in a Bachelor of Science-Doctor of Medicine degree program at a midwestern medical college in the United States. The findings revealed that neither self-directed nor other-directed career choice predicted academic success.
Adults and aging groups. McCleese and Eby explored adult workers' reactions to job content plateau, or the perception that one's job lacks challenge. Previous research has shown a negative relationship between job plateau and work attitude. Therefore, McCleese and Eby examined the circumstances by which employees who have reached a job content plateau may experience fewer negative work attitudes. Two circumstances were found. When role ambiguity was low, individuals responded less negatively to job content plateaus. Therefore, individuals experiencing a job content plateau should be proactive in seeking out information from managers and coworkers to clarify job objectives, responsibilities, and expectations. The other situation resulting in fewer negative outcomes was when job content plateau employees were not concurrently experiencing a hierarchical plateau, or the number of positions or opportunities for upward mobility in the organization was not limited. Employees who still perceived opportunities for upward advancement might believe that their jobs would become more challenging as they advanced; therefore, their work attitudes were not as negatively affected by the lack of challenges on their current job.
Klein, Fan, and Preacher conducted a field study to examine how early socialization experiences affected new employee mastery of socialization content and socialization outcomes. One hundred and ninety-four new employees reported the realism of their preentry knowledge and the helpfulness of socialization agents. A follow-up survey assessed mastery of socialization content along with role clarity, job satisfaction, and affective organizational commitment. The results of structural equation modeling supported the hypothesized model. Realism of preentry knowledge and agent helpfulness, the two indicators of early socialization experiences, were associated with greater role clarity, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. In addition, the mastery of specific socialization content dimensions, the often assumed intervening process, was shown to mediate those relationships explicitly.
Career success from the viewpoint of aging workers was investigated by Robson, Hansson, Abalos, and Booth. They developed an inventory to set criteria for successful aging in the workplace. The five criteria were adaptability and health, positive relationships, occupational growth, personal security, and continued focus and achievement of personal goals. Because aging workers continued to place strong emphasis on personal goal achievement, it was suggested that the organization should continue to provide support for the older worker. Robson et al. also suggested an integrated framework to satisfy needs, diverse goals, and aspirations of aging workers.
Special groups. Strauser, Lustig, Cogdal, and Uruk examined the relationship between trauma symptoms and the career development process of 131 college students. Their findings suggested that increased levels of trauma symptoms may negatively affect the three major aspects of the career development process: career thought, work personality, and vocational identity. It was suggested that individuals who reported higher levels of recalled trauma symptoms may experience difficulty in meeting the interpersonal demands of the work environment, establishing a vocational identity, and making effective career decisions.
For economically disadvantaged adolescents, Hoffner et al. examined the role of television characters in adolescents' career aspirations. The participants were mainly high school students from an economically depressed inner-city area of Chicago. They found that television was one of several key sources of work-related information during the career aspiration process. There was a positive relationship between the income and education level of the adolescent's dream job and the attributes of the television character's job. For economically disadvantaged adolescents, especially those in urban areas, modeling characters from television played an important role in the development of their career aspirations.
Ali and McWhirter conducted another study with economically deprived adolescents. The participants were mainly from small rural towns in southern Appalachia. The authors applied social cognitive variables to explain high school students' post-high school career aspirations. The results indicated that self-efficacy, outcome expectations, perceived barriers to postsecondary education, and social economic status contributed significantly to their postsecondary pathways.
Multicultural Perspectives
Turner et al. tested the effectiveness of the Integrative Contextual Model of Career Development (ICM; Lapan, 2004) for Native American adolescents. The six career development skills were career exploration, person-environment fit, goal setting, social/personal/work readiness, self-regulated learning, and the utilization of social support. The six intermediate vocational outcomes assessed were academic achievement, self-efficacy expectations, positive self-attributions, vocational interests, vocational identity, and proactivity. Results indicated that the variate composed of the six ICM skills could predict 79% of the variance in the variate composed of five of the six ICM outcomes. This means that the six ICM skills are important individually and collectively in developing Native American adolescents' educational and vocational self-efficacy, identity, and interests, as well as their positive attributions and proactivity.
For African American college students, influential factors regarding their career development were investigated by Falconer and Hays through a focus group approach. Categories of factors included continuous connections with teachers, positive influence of peer group, struggles with family and community career expectations, and strong beliefs in the efficacy of mentors and networking. Results indicated clearly that support systems were very influential in the career and academic development of this group of African American college students. H. D. Harrison, Wubbenhorst, Waits, and Hurt examined workforce development among African American churches in Memphis, Tennessee. Findings are presented from a survey of 166 Black churches concerning awareness of and knowledge about community workforce activities and assets, as well as the church's role, interest in, and available resources relating to workforce development. A comparison group of 44 other faith-based organizations (i.e., churches and other faith-based nonprofit organizations) was used. The survey results demonstrated a number of findings about this particular faith community that could be generalized to other communities. This study also provides researchers with a review of the history and role of the Black church as a community-service organization with specific reference to programs and services relating to workforce development.
Lim, Winter, and Chan used two cases--one from Algeria and another from India--to illustrate the importance of cultural sensitivity in successful interviewing within the hiring process. They asserted that career professionals need to be aware of the potential impact of discrimination caused by cultural misunderstanding. Effective strategies suggested include establishing rapport with the candidates, building a relationship, and choosing culturally appropriate interview styles.
Flores, Berkel, et al. conducted a meta-analysis of publications from 1969 to 2004 regarding racial/ethnic minority (REM) vocational behavior. Publication trends, article content and type, samples, and leading author and institutional contributors were reported in the review. Flores, Berkel, et al. indicated that because of the growing number of the REM individuals in the United States, more research studies regarding these individuals are needed to avoid potential biased understanding of their career development and psychology of work. Within the 29 categories investigated, the most frequently addressed content areas in the REM career articles were contextual factors, racial bias/discrimination, gender differences, and assessment. Because most of the studies relied on student samples (i.e., 55% of the samples), Flores, Berkel, et al. reminded future researchers to pay more attention to the career behaviors of the REM community-at-large.
Global/International Perspectives
Hughes and Thomas attempted to validate the Australian version of the Career Development Inventory (CDI) in Thailand. Of the original four scales (Career Planning [CP], Career Exploration [CE], World of Work Information [WW], and Decision Making [DM]) in the CDI, only the CP scale, with Item 5 deleted, was found to be suitable for the proposed cross-cultural investigation. They asserted that a more comprehensive investigation of career maturity in Australia and Thailand would require the local development of Thai scales that correspond to the WW, DM, and CE scales of the CDI.
In Asia, Lai, Peng, and Chang explored career-choice behavior of students in the Nursing College in Eastern Taiwan. The results indicated that 65.4% of the nursing students reported that they would not choose nursing as their career. Factors significantly related to this decision were lack of clinical ability, degree of stress during clinical practice, and lack of support from the nursing staff.
The construct of Lent, Brown, and Hackett's (1994) Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) was also tested globally. Tracey, Lent, Brown, Soresi, and Nota tested the interest structure of adolescents in Italy, and results indicated that there was less stability in the occupational percepts of... |
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