Date of Award

Winter 1992

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Program/Concentration

Urban Services - Urban Education

Committee Director

Garrett McAuliffe

Committee Member

James Calliote

Committee Member

Edward Neukrug

Committee Member

Jack Robinson

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of two career counseling interventions upon the career decision-making self-efficacy of two groups of undecided high school seniors. The setting of the study was a large public high school in a metropolitan area in the Southeastern region of the United States. In order to identify students' initial levels of confidence and certainty for making career and educational plans, a brief self-report survey was administered to seniors. Seniors appearing to possess low levels of confidence and certainty were given the Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Scale (CDMSES) as a diagnostic screening measure. Forty-eight potential subjects were invited to take part in career counseling groups. Thirty-one of the 48 seniors elected to join a group. The participants were randomly assigned to an Information Treatment (IT) group or to a Self-Efficacy Plus Information Treatment (SEIT) group. The Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Scale, My Vocational Situation, and the Goal Instability Scale were given as outcome measures following the three 45-minute sessions of treatment which took place over a one month period of time. A Posttest-Only Design was used for the study. The three hypotheses indicated that participants receiving the SEIT treatment would have significantly higher levels of self-efficacy and vocational identity, and lower levels of goal instability than the IT subjects. A series of t tests, MANOVA, and ANOVA procedures were used to analyze the data for significant differences. The three hypotheses for the study were rejected with no differences being found. Two areas of statistical significance were discovered in the data. First, goal instability proved to be significantly less for the group receiving the IT treatment. Second, the IT and SEIT groups experienced large gains on the CDMSES from the initial screening to the posttest. A 2 x 2 ANOVA showed the pretest to posttest gains on the CDMSES of the groups to be significant at the p

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DOI

10.25777/yd71-3p03

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