Career Maturity of Young Gifted Adolescents: A Replication Study

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to replicate previous findings of a positive association between academic achievement and career maturity in young adolescents. Academic achievement and gender were the independent variables. The dependent variables were vocational identity, need for occupational information, perceived career barriers, and range of occupational aspiration. Gifted students perceived fewer career barriers than students in the regular curriculum. There were two interactions of gender and academic curriculum. First, gifted boys expressed a greater need for occupational information than gifted girls or students from the regular curriculum. Second, gifted boys expressed an interest in a wider range of occupational aspirations than gifted girls. The implications of these findings for program development in the area of career education and guidance are identified.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Delisle

, & Squires

(1989). Career development for gifted and talented youth: Position statement, Division on Career Development (DCD) and The Association for the Gifted (TAG). Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 13, 97–104.

Eccles

(1985). Why doesn't Jane run? Sex differences in educational and occupational patterns. In Horowitz

& O'Brien

(eds.), The gifted and talented: Developmental perspectives. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Henkels

, Spokane

, & Hoffman

(1981). Vocational identity, personality, and preferred mode of interest inventory feedback. Measurement and Evaluation in Guidance, 14, 71–76.

Holland

, Daiger

, & Power

(1980). My Vocational Situation. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

Holland

, Gottfredson

, & Power

(1980). Some diagnostic scales for research in decision-making and personality: Identity, information, and barriers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 1191–1200.

Kelly

, & Cobb

(1991). A profile of the career development characteristics of young gifted adolescents: Examining gender and multicultural differences. Roeper Review, 13, 202–206.

Kelly

, & Colangelo

(1990). Effects of academic ability and gender on career development. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 13, 168–175.

Kerr

, & Colangelo

(1988). The college plans of academically talented students. Journal of Counseling and Development, 67, 42–49.

Leong

, & Morris

(1989). Assessing the construct validity of Holland, Daiger, and Power's measure of vocational identity. Measurement and Evaluation in Guidance and Counseling, 22, 117–125.

10.

Reis

, & Callahan

(1989). Gifted females: They've come a long way—or have they? Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 12 (2), 99–117.

11.

Super

(1977). Vocational maturity in mid-career. Vocational Guidance Quarterly, 25, 294–302.

12.

———. (1987). Career and life development. In Brown

& Brooks

(eds.), Career choice and development. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

13.

Terman

, & Oden

(1947). The gifted child grows up. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

14.

Terman

, & Oden

(1959). The gifted group at midlife: Twenty-five years' follow-up of the superior child. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

15.

Tinsley

, Bowman

, & York

(1989). Career Decision Scale, My Vocational Situation, Vocational Rating Scale, and Decisional Rating Scale: Do they measure the same constructs? Journal of Counseling Psychology, 36, 115–120.