The Career Futures Inventory

Abstract

This study reports the development and initial validation of the Career Futures Inventory–Revised (CFI-R) in two large samples of university students. The 28-item CFI-R assesses aspects of career adaptability, including positive career planning attitudes, general outcome expectations, and components of Parsons’ tripartite model and Bandura’s personal agency. Results revealed five internally consistent subscales: career agency, occupational awareness, support, work–life balance, and negative career outlook. Changes from the original CFI include a measure of career agency, including content addressing self-awareness, control, and self-efficacy for managing career transitions; and measures of relational components. Convergent and discriminant validity of the CFI-R subscales were examined related to measures of career decision status, difficulties, and self-efficacy, as well as dispositional optimism and coping styles. The CFI-R can aid in the understanding of current attitudes toward a variety of career transitions and enhance the effectiveness of career counseling by addressing clients’ concerns in a changing occupational world.

Keywords

career adaptability work–life balance optimism control support self-efficacy agency

Inspired by his work with immigrants in Boston a century ago, Frank Parsons (1909) emphasized the importance of person–environment (P-E) fit in making vocational choices, recommending a tripartite approach of understanding oneself, the work environment, and true reasoning between these two sets of facts. His influential dictum still guides career counselors. Parallel to the changes driven by industrialization during Parsons’ time, navigating these steps can be overwhelming for workers blindsided by the tumultuous 21st-century society. However, the volatile nature of today’s global economy and technological advances require not only true reasoning but additional coping skills, attitudes, and resources for our clients to increase their adjustment to the changing circumstances affecting their work lives. This reality underscores the critical importance of establishing contemporary measures of how clients view themselves, the world of work, and their approaches to adapting career plans accordingly.

The purpose of this article is to report on the scale refinement and psychometric evaluation of the revised and expanded version of the Career Futures Inventory (CFI; Rottinghaus, Day, & Borgen, 2005), a measure of career adaptability, career optimism, and perceived knowledge of the job market. The original CFI incorporated insights from Savickas’ (1997) extension of Super and his colleagues’ (e.g., Super & Kidd, 1979) career adaptability construct and numerous positive psychology concepts, including Carver and Scheier’s (1981) dispositional optimism related to the self-regulation of career behavior in adults. Rottinghaus et al. (2005) reported moderate correlations between CFI scales and measures of dispositional optimism, career decision self-efficacy, and problem solving. Overall, high CFI scores related to higher educational aspirations, greater comfort with their educational and career-related plans, and engagement in career exploration activities. Now, the original CFI has been expanded to address all three of Parsons’ factors, and career adaptability components to comprise the following five scales of the 28-item CFI-Revised (CFI-R): Career Agency, Occupational Awareness (OA), Support, Work–Life Balance (WLB), and Negative Career Outlook (NCO). After an overview of relevant constructs that informed the revision process, the following sections describe the revision procedures, psychometric properties of the measures, and results of an initial validation study examining relationships between the subscales with a variety of theoretically related constructs.

Career Adaptability

Donald Super and his colleagues (Super & Kidd, 1979; Super & Knasel, 1979) introduced the term “career adaptability” to conceptualize how adults adjust to the challenges of a changing world of work. Savickas (2005) later defined career adaptability as “a psychosocial construct that denotes an individual’s readiness and resources for coping with current and imminent vocational development tasks, occupational transitions, and personal traumas” (p. 51). Attending to the complex process of coping with career management tasks can aid today’s workers in identifying personal strengths, knowledge, and other resources necessary for adjusting to changing contextual circumstances affecting their work lives.

Career adaptability serves as a focal point related to career theory and practice (van Vianen, De Pater, & Preenan, 2009) and may help structure healthy career decision making. Therefore, a complete consideration of this concept incorporates insights from differential psychology, P-E fit, and developmental perspectives. Rottinghaus and Van Esbroeck (2011) elaborated on career adaptability as a dynamic mechanism for fit and development that supplements the traditional assessment of individual differences. Affected by personality and context, this interactionist term reflects Parsons’ wise decision making while functioning as a vehicle through which people manage transitions effectively across the life span.

Research on career adaptability has been limited by a lack of an agreed upon operational definition and affiliated measures, although important progress is being made. Savickas (2005) has elaborated on traditional features of career maturity and offered the 4 Cs of career adaptability within Career Construction Theory: concern, control, curiosity, and confidence. Each dimension encompasses a set of more specific attitudes, beliefs, competencies, and affiliated coping behaviors that reflect adaptability. Rottinghaus, Day, and Borgen (2005) offered a general measure of career adaptability, defined as one’s perceived “capacity to cope with and capitalize on change in the future, level of comfort with new work responsibilities, and ability to recover when unforeseen events alter career plans” (p. 11). Creed, Fallon, and Hood (2009) emphasized the role of self-regulation and found support for a career adaptability model composed of self and career exploration, career planning, decision making. Duffy (2010) reported that control, positive outlook, and social support contributed to career adaptability as measured by the CFI. Altogether, vocational psychologists need to establish systems to conceptualize, measure, and evaluate this construct, to help make it applicable to career interventions. The following sections highlight affiliated dimensions of career adaptability that guided the CFI revision process.

Knowledge of Self and Work Environments

Career development interventions inherently emphasize knowledge of self and the occupational world, which are key components of Parsons’ framework and most other models of career decision making, such as P-E fit (Rottinghaus & Van Esbroeck, 2011) and Cognitive Information Processing (Sampson, Reardon, Peterson, & Lenz, 2004). Acting on the curiosity to explore possible connections between aspects of self and the world leads to knowledge that supports career adaptability (Savickas, 2005). Therefore, we sought to incorporate measures of these aspects that could serve as an intake assessment to address client needs and potential gaps necessary for career choice and adjustment.

Self awareness

Building on Parsons’ (1909) early focus on self-knowledge, vocational psychologists have established a rich literature examining various individual differences including interests, abilities, personality, needs, and values (Armstrong & Rounds, 2008; Lubinski, 2000). Through assessing perceptions of self-knowledge across these domains and others comprising the self-concept (Vondracek & Porfeli, 2011), counselors and clients can be primed to identify and address relevant objectives.

Occupational awareness

Assessing clients’ views about their knowledge of occupations, education, training, and overall economic trends can sensitize them to engage in the exploration process. Gore and Hitch (2005) elaborated on occupational classification systems and the growth of occupational information resources available. Clients also must keep abreast of macro-level developments and identify jobs with a bright employment outlook within emerging industries (e.g., biotechnology and nanotechnology). For example, many existing and emerging occupations involve knowledge and experience in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM; e.g., accounting, nursing, engineering; Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011).

Self-Regulatory Coping Related to Career Behaviors

Coping relates to the manner in which individuals deal with various types of psychological stressors, including career-related barriers (London, 1998), career transitions (Fouad & Bynner, 2008), work–family conflict (Chen, Powell, & Greenhaus, 2009), work stress, and dealing with job loss (Leana, Feldman, & Tan, 1998). Broadly speaking, three main coping styles include emotion-focused, problem-focused, and avoidant coping (Carver, 1997). Scholarship of coping suggests complex relationships between coping and variables such as perceived control, cognitive appraisal, self-efficacy, and dispositional optimism. For example, Weinstein, Healy, and Ender (2002) found that women who perceived greater control and engaged in more problem-focused coping reported less anxiety regarding their career choice compared to those who perceived less control. London (1998) indicated that one’s manner of coping with vocational concerns is influenced by his or her resilience to adversity and the degree of support available. Therefore, it appears that the ways in which individuals choose to cope are influenced by cognitive and affective variables (i.e., perceived control, resilience), as well as external, environmental factors. In turn, the use of different types of coping strategies is related to differential outcomes. The dimensions of optimism, control, and confidence relate more directly to self-regulatory coping strategies.

Optimism

Carver and Scheier’s (1981) concept of dispositional optimism refers to a generalized tendency to maintain a positive outlook—expecting good events to be plentiful, and bad events rare. Although presumed stable, respondents are likely to be affected by current economic realities, transitory moods, and their career decision status. Many studies have shown the beneficial aspects of optimism, including physical health, adjustment to college, work productivity, prevention of depression, and coping with unemployment, in addition to other desirable characteristics such as happiness, achievement, and perseverance (Aspinwall, 2005). Savickas (2005) emphasized the paramount importance of concern about one’s future work life. Indeed, future orientation increases the awareness necessary to plan careers strategically. As reflected in the term “career futures,” individuals’ outlook on how their career will turn out is central to the CFI-R.

How might optimism affect self-regulatory approaches to tasks involved in career planning and development? Dispositional optimism supports adaptive career planning strategies (Creed, Patton, & Bartrum, 2002). Optimistic individuals report higher levels of self-esteem, embrace problem-solving coping strategies (e.g., career planning and exploration), report greater confidence about their career choices, have more career-related goals, and lower levels of psychological distress (Creed et al., 2002; Strutton & Lumpkin, 1992). In contrast, pessimistic individuals tend to fare worse both in terms of general psychological health and vocationally, employ emotion-focused coping strategies, and possess lower levels of career decision-making knowledge. Optimists likely adapt better to new situations because of their greater flexibility in processing and acting on information (Aspinwall, Richter, & Hoffman, 2001). Aspinwall and Taylor (1992) examined how optimism aids in adjustment to college. Controlling for initial positive and negative mood, the beneficial effects of optimism, control, and self-esteem on adjustment were mediated by the nonuse of avoidance coping, greater use of active coping, and greater seeking of social support. Taken together, optimism is related to the use of more adaptive coping methods, which in turn is related to greater well-being and better career management.

Control

Rotter (1954) introduced the concept of perceived control to indicate individual differences in the degree of control beliefs for a given situation. In addition, research examining perceptions of control from attribution theory (Weiner, 1986), Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory concept of agency, and the basic need for autonomy (Deci & Ryan, 1985) offers insights into numerous career-related behaviors, including perceived options available, exploration effort, as well as career choice and success.

Weiner’s (1986) attribution theory states that a person strives to explain the occurrences and outcomes in his or her life that influence beliefs, feelings, and behaviors. Weiner proposed dimensions people use to classify their explanations, one of which is controllability, or whether the cause of an event is influenced or controlled by the person, or by external, uncontrollable factors. College students who attribute control over their careers to internal factors are more likely than students who attribute control to external factors to work in positions that are similar to their career goals (Luzzo & Ward, 1995) and show higher levels of career decidedness (Taylor, 1982) and career maturity (Lennings, 1994).

Bandura’s (2006) human agency involves intentionally influencing life circumstances through one’s own reflective actions. This demonstrates the desire a person has to exert internal control and influence on behaviors and outcomes. Individuals who believe themselves to be capable for given tasks are better able to develop those competencies, have more options available to them, and realize their potential than those whose agentic properties are less developed (Bandura, 1986). This greater control increases perceived career options available due to a stronger belief in one’s competencies and career potential.

Career transition confidence

Bandura’s (1977) self-efficacy concept has inspired vibrant programs of vocational research and practice (Betz & Hackett, 2006). Incorporating an individual’s belief in his or her capacity to perform specific tasks naturally applies to the process of making career decisions. Moreover, recent attention to Deci and Ryan’s (2000) self-determination theory within vocational psychology underscores the basic human need for competence. Notable measures include the Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale (CDSE; Betz & Taylor, 2001) and the Career Search Efficacy Scale (Solberg, 1998). Given the ubiquity of career transitions across people’s careers and the relevance of confidence to career adaptability (Savickas, 2005), the authors sought to include a focused measure examining self-efficacy for managing career transitions.

The Interface Between the Occupational Self and Relational World

Career development does not occur within a vacuum. Clients must negotiate complex relationships with important people in their lives in order to adjust to demands of planning a career (Richardson, 2001). Two key relational dimensions, which are potentially beneficial or stressful to clients, include perceptions of support and WLB (Blustein, 2011).

Support

Social support includes information that shows a person is cared for, valued, and esteemed by members in their social network (Cobb, 1976). Support may involve formal or informal provision of emotional, instrumental, or informational assistance by others to help cope with challenges (Mallinckrodt & Leong, 1992; Vaux, 1988). This important contextual factor acknowledges the role of relationships (Blustein, 2001, 2011) and the basic need for relatedness (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Support can come in many forms across diverse relationships. As adolescents move into adulthood, support from family members, teachers, peers, or religious leaders can buffer against stress, depression, and barriers to success (Cohen & Wills, 1985) as well as heighten perceived career opportunities and aspirations, especially for ethnic minority youth (Kenny & Bledsoe, 2005).

While support from teachers and peers increases in importance during the adolescent and young adult years, family support always remains highly important (Furman & Buhrmeister, 1992). Students who have high levels of family support have higher educational self-esteem (Dubow & Ullman, 1989) and family support is a greater predictor of a student’s involvement in school than economic status (Connell, Spencer, & Aber, 1994). Hirschi (2009) reported that social support significantly predicted growth in career adaptability during a 10-month period in a large sample of Swiss eighth-grade students. Overall, having a strong support system enhances self-efficacy for career exploration and decision making (Blustein, Prezioso, & Palladino Schultheiss, 1995) thereby increasing expectations and facilitating adjustment.

WLB

Managing work and personal lives is a ubiquitous concern for all. Balance may be addressed in terms of time, involvement, and satisfaction across multiple life domains (e.g., work, family, and friends). Kalliath and Brough (2008) discussed six specific domains through which WLB has been conceptualized, including individuals’ holding multiple roles, feeling equality of time and involvement in their roles, finding satisfaction within roles, perceiving the importance of multiple roles, feeling control over their different life roles, and experiencing a lack of role conflict.

Blustein (2011) explained that work and relationships are not separate arenas within one’s life. Instead, there appears to be a cyclical pattern of influence; one’s work life overlaps and helps shape one’s personal relationships, which in turn, affect work life. The cycle of influence can have both positive and maladaptive effects. Positive effects may be perceived as the experience of greater WLB, or positive spillover, and the maladaptive effects may be seen as a lack of balance between the areas of one’s life (Chen et al., 2009).

The concepts of life-role salience, strain, and multiple role overload are important issues for clients. Individuals are likely to experience these negative effects within one or more different areas of their life. These concepts, among others, create the WLB construct, which has gained momentum recently. For example, a special issue of the Journal of Occupational Behavior focused on WLB for its influence on all aspects of work behavior and occupational theory (Brough & Kalliath, 2009). In addition to benefiting work-related behaviors, personal perceptions of the balance between one’s various life domains have been shown to relate to overall quality of life (Greenhaus, Collins, & Shaw, 2003).

The Present Investigation

The purpose of this article is to introduce the revised version of the CFI. Study 1 summarizes the revision process and describes the resulting measures. Study 2 presents results of an initial validation study examining the convergent and discriminant validity by examining relationships between many of the subscales and a variety of career decision-making measures, including career decision self-efficacy and career decision difficulties. We also investigate relations between the CFI-R scales and theoretically related constructs of coping and dispositional optimism. We hypothesize that career decision self-efficacy shows positive relationships with adaptive CFI-R scales, whereas career decision difficulty is negatively related to these CFI-R scales. These relationships should be moderate as to suggest the presence of distinct constructs. We hypothesize that problem-focused and emotion-focused coping relate positively to adaptive CFI-R scales, whereas avoidant-focused coping relates negatively to these adaptive CFI-R scales. Finally, we examined group differences in CFI-R scales for self-reported college major and career decision statuses.

Study 1: Scale Development Method

The authors generated 165 new items reflecting the aforementioned theoretical perspectives and operational definitions from the literature with the intent to expand content coverage and create more specific scales. Next, three vocational psychologists, three career counseling practitioners, and two counseling psychology doctoral students conducted a content analysis to ensure that items reflected the proposed dimensions. A total of 42 items were removed due to redundancies and limited connection with the proposed constructs, which resulted in a 148-item pool, including all 25 items of the original CFI, 7 control, 17 career transition confidence, 17 occupational awareness, 13 support, 12 WLB, 33 career optimism, and 24 self-awareness items. Participants responded to the research form over a secure Internet site by indicating the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with each statement using a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Guided by Dawis’ (1987) scale construction recommendations, we used a hybrid approach incorporating the rational method and empirical item analyses based on additional exploratory factor analyses.

Participants

The participants for this study were 250 students from two large Midwestern universities enrolled in a career development class and a graduate management seminar. The sample included 104 (41.6%) women and 146 (58.4%) men. There were 40 (16.0%) freshmen, 71 (28.4%) sophomores, 62 (24.8%) juniors, 36 (14.4%) seniors, 26 (10.4%) graduate students, and 15 (6.0%) unclassified participants in this sample. Sixteen (6.4%) participants identified as Asian/Pacific Islander, 46 (18.4%) as Black/African American, 7 (2.8%) as Hispanic/Latino(a), 1 (0.4%) as Native American, 166 (66.4%) as White/European American, and 14 (5.6%) multiracial participants.

Results

An initial item analysis was conducted to eliminate those with extremely low (<1.0) or high means (>4.2), and items with low item-total correlations (<.40) within each respective proposed scale. The remaining 65 items were then included in a series of exploratory factor analyses with promax rotation. A detailed process of examining the scree plot and factor interpretability revealed the presence of three to six plausible factors. Factors involving positively and negatively worded items were evident in each model. Clean factors with high item-factor loadings (>.50) for the initial proposed constructs of self-awareness, occupational awareness, support, and WLB held up across all solutions. Due to the inherent overlapping content and theoretical relatedness among career optimism, control, and career transition confidence, discrimination among the scales was unstable. Items from each of these scales loaded together across each solution. Moreover, scales for these constructs established purely through the rational method, although highly reliable, resulted in unacceptably high intercorrelations. Therefore, we subjected these items to factor analysis, which resulted in a composite factor reflecting Bandura’s (1986, 2006) personal agency construct, as well as a second factor addressing NCO (e.g., “I doubt my career will turn out well in the future”). Additional research on agency highlighted aspects including self-reflectiveness or functional self-awareness. Next, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis involving the proposed Career Transition Confidence (CTC), Career Optimism, Control, and Self-Awareness items. The self-awareness items loaded on the prior agency factor that also included control and self-efficacy items.

After removing 16 items with lower item-factor loadings, we subjected the remaining 49 items to a principal axis factor analysis with promax rotation. Examination of the scree plot, and factor interpretability revealed a meaningful five-factor solution. Following Dawis’ recommendations (1987), we identified a core set of essential items for each proposed scale across the analyses and eliminated items with low correlations with crucial content and/or high cross-factor loadings. Therefore, informed by these preliminary analyses and constructs established through the rational method, this process resulted in the final 28-item instrument composing five internally consistent scales. Table 1 provides the structure matrix from the five-factor solution, eigenvalues, communalities, and includes definitions for each factor. Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency estimates ranged from .78 to .90 (see Table 2 ). Table 3 reports correlations between each measure. Overall, these CFI-R subscales are moderately correlated.

Table 1.

Career Futures Inventory–Revised (CFI-R) Scale Definitions, Eigenvalues, Factor Loadings, and Communalities

Factor/Item	1	2	3	4	5	h²
Factor 1: Career agency (CA): Perceived capacity for self-reflection and forethought to intentionally initiate, control, and manage career transitions
I can perform a successful job search	.74	−.36	.51	.51	.44	.58
I can adapt to change in the world of work	.71	−.40	.21	.43	.41	.55
I understand my work-related interests	.70	−.25	.47	.42	.42	.52
I am aware of priorities in my life	.69	−.34	.30	.48	.54	.51
I can establish a plan for my future career	.68	−.28	.50	.37	.27	.52
I am aware of my strengths	.68	−.26	.39	.48	.54	.49
I am in control of my career	.66	−.30	.40	.44	.49	.45
I will successfully manage my present career transition process	.66	−.34	.39	.58	.44	.49
I understand my work-related values	.65	−.31	.35	.35	.41	.44
I can overcome potential barriers that may exist in my career	.65	−.40	.21	.44	.43	.46
Factor 2: Negative career outlook (NCO): Negative thoughts about career decisions and belief that one will not achieve favorable career outcomes
I doubt my career will turn out well in the future	−.43	.90	−.18	−.39	−.32	.82
It is unlikely that good things will happen in my career	−.36	.89	−.13	−.31	−.29	.81
I lack the energy to pursue my career goals	−.44	.87	−.18	−.36	−.29	.77
Thinking about my career frustrates me	−.44	.60	−.27	−.30	−.16	.42
Factor 3: Occupational awareness (OA): Perceptions of how well an individual understands job market and employment trends
I am good at understanding job market trends	.38	−.19	.74	.14	.35	.58
I keep up with trends in at least one occupation or industry of interest to me	.33	−.05	.70	.28	.29	.52
I keep current with job market trends	.30	−.05	.67	.22	.25	.47
I keep current with changes in technology	.47	−.33	.62	.28	.24	.44
I understand how economic trends affect career opportunities available to me	.55	−.23	.61	.32	.44	.46
I do not understand job market trends	−.35	.48	−.51	−.07	−.10	.46
Factor 4: Support: Perceived emotional and instrumental support from family and friends in pursuing career goals
My family is there to help me through career challenges	.48	−.32	.16	.76	.38	.59
I receive all the encouragement I need from others to meet my career goals	.42	−.31	.28	.76	.55	.62
Others in my life are very supportive of my career	.60	−.33	.29	.74	.52	.58
Friends are available to offer support in my career transition	.45	−.24	.26	.62	.35	.39
Factor 5: Work–life balance (WLB): Ability to understand and manage responsibilities to others across multiple life roles
I am good at balancing multiple life roles such as worker, family member, or friend	.53	−.33	.34	.47	.76	.59
I am very strategic when it comes to balancing my work and personal lives	.47	−.18	.34	.42	.67	.47
Balancing work and family responsibilities is manageable	.60	−.31	.32	.55	.66	.52
I can easily manage my needs and those of other important people in my life	.41	−.20	.33	.36	.59	.37
Eigenvalues	9.9	2.5	2.1	1.4	1.2
Percent common variance	35.4	9.1	7.4	5.0	4.2

Note. N = 249.

CA = Career Agency; NCO = Negative Career Outlook; OA = Occupational Awareness; WLB = Work-Life Balance; h ² = communality estimate. Boldface values identify the strongest item-factor loadings for each item.

Table 2.

Means, Standard Deviations, and Reliability Estimates for the Career Futures Inventory–Revised (CFI-R) Scales in the Development and Validation Samples

	Development Sample (N = 250)			Validation Sample (N = 348)
Subscale	M	SD	Cronbach’s Alpha	M	SD	Cronbach’s Alpha
Career agency	3.92	.64	.90	3.94	.61	.88
Negative career outlook	2.34	1.12	.89	2.06	.85	.77
Occupational awareness	3.45	.71	.80	3.31	.77	.80
Support	3.98	.75	.81	4.01	.73	.77
Work–life balance	3.80	.71	.78	3.75	.73	.75

Table 3.

Correlations Between Career Futures Inventory–Revised (CFI-R) Subscales in Development and Validation Samples

	CA	NCO	OA	Support	WLB
Career agency	—	−.59	.47	.64	.71
Negative career outlook	−.46	—	−.26	−.42	−.53
Occupational awareness	.54	−.30	—	.28	.40
Support	.61	−.41	.32	—	.58
Work–life balance	.65	−.34	.44	.56	—

Note. CA = career agency; NCO = negative career outlook; OA = occupational awareness; WLB = work–life balance.

All correlations are significant at the p < .001 level. Correlations below diagonal represent development sample; Correlations above diagonal represent validation sample.

Study 2: CFI-R Validation Method

Participants

The participants for this study were 348 undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory psychology course who volunteered to participate in the study for course credit. The sample included 178 (51.1%) women and 170 (48.9%) men. The sample included 9 (2.6%) Asian/Pacific Islanders, 115 (33.0%) African Americans, 24 (6.9%) Hispanic/Latino(a)s, 2(0.6%) Native Americans, 189 (54.3%) European Americans, and 9 (2.6%) multiracial participants. There were 277 (79.6%) freshmen, 50 (14.4%) sophomores, 12 (3.4%) juniors, and 9 (2.6%) seniors. One hundred and two (29.3%) participants had not declared a major, and 244 (70.1%) had declared a major, and 2 (0.6%) did not report.

Measures

Demographic and Career Planning Questionnaire

Participants reported their gender, race/ethnicity, class, educational aspirations, college major, career choice status (undecided, tentatively decided, or decided), and possible career choices.

Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire (CDDQ)

The CDDQ (Gati & Saka, 2001) is a 34-item measure of concerns affecting career decisions, including three internally consistent categories of difficulty: lack of readiness to make a career decision, lack of information, and inconsistent information. The CDDQ uses a 9-point scale ranging from 1 (does not describe me) to 9 (describes me well). Osipow and Gati (1998) reported a Cronbach’s alpha reliability of .94 for the total CDDQ score (also .94 for the current study). Convergent validity was also established in the same study with the Career Decision Scale, while discriminant validity was established with the CDSE.

Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale–Short Form (CDSE-SF)

The CDSE-SF (Betz & Taylor, 2001) is a 25-item measure of students’ efficacy beliefs concerning their ability to successfully make career decisions. The CDSE-SF includes five internally consistent subscales designed to reflect Crites’ (1961) five career choice competencies: Self-Appraisal, Occupational Information, Goal Selection, Planning, and Problem Solving. The CDSE-SF uses a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (no confidence at all) to 5 (complete confidence). Chaney, Hammond, Betz, and Multon (2007) reported alpha coefficients for the above scales as .81, .79, .85, .83, and .78, respectively. The total CDSE score (α = .93) was used herein. Betz and Taylor (2001) reported a 6-week test–retest reliability of .83. Betz, Hammond, and Multon (2005) established convergent and discriminant validity with measures of career decision, and vocational identity, hope, and affect.

Brief COPE

The Brief COPE (Carver, 1997) is a 28-item measure of how frequently individuals engage in the following broad types of coping behaviors when they experience stressful events: emotion-focused, problem-focused, and avoidant/dysfunctional. The Brief COPE utilizes a 4-point scale ranging from 0 (I haven’t been doing this at all) to 3 (I’ve been doing this a lot). Cooper, Katona, and Livingston (2008) found alpha coefficients of .72, .84, and .75, respectively; 1-year test–retest reliability estimates were .58, .72, and .68, respectively. For the current study, internal consistency estimates were .71, .79, and .77, respectively.

Life orientation test–revised (LOT-R)

The LOT-R (Scheier, Carver, & Bridges, 1994) is a 10-item measure of dispositional optimism and pessimism. Only 6 of the 10 items are coded as being reflective of optimism or pessimism. The measure uses a 5-point scale that ranges from 0 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). The LOT-R demonstrated adequate internal consistency (α = .76) in the current study. Creed, Patton, and Bartrum, (2002) reported convergent and discriminant validity with measures of career maturity, career decision making, and self-esteem.

Career Decision Profile (CDP)

CDP (Jones, 1988) is a 16-item scale that measures career decision status, comprised of three internally consistent subscales: decidedness, comfort, and a reasons measure consisting of lack of self-clarity, lack of knowledge about occupations and training, lack of decisiveness, and lack of career choice importance. The CDP uses an 8-point scale that ranges from 1 (strongly disagree) to 8 (strongly agree). Jones (1989) reported adequate test–retest reliability for Decidedness, Comfort, and Reasons scales as .66, .76, and .80, respectively. For the current study, internal consistency estimates were .81, .74, and .87, respectively. Jones (1989) also established convergent and discriminant validity with career salience, trait anxiety, and identity achievement status.

Results

Table 2 also reports Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency estimates from the validation sample, which ranged from .75 to .88. Table 4 reports correlations between the CFI-R scales and the validation measures. The overall pattern highlights numerous examples supporting the validity of the CFI-R scales (e.g., r _{Career Agency−CDSE Total} = .58; r _{Career Agency−CDDQ Total} = −.50). Career Agency demonstrated a pattern reflecting more adaptive coping methods, including .28 and −.30 correlations with problem-focused and avoidant coping, respectively. NCO was significantly correlated with LOT-R (−.37) and demonstrated moderate correlations with the CDP subscales, decidedness (−.41), comfort (−.49), and reasons (−.56). career agency related positively to decidedness (.38), comfort (.46), and reasons (.47). OA showed moderate relationships with Comfort (.34) and Reasons (.39). Tables 5 and 6 show the differences among the mean CFI-R scores for major and certainty of career choice statuses. (A Bonferroni adjustment was made to account for the five tests conducted, resulting in a new alpha level of p < .01.) For major status, NCO, OA, and Support each showed significant differences (p < .01) in the expected direction. For career choice status, significant differences among the three statuses were found in the expected direction for Career Agency and NCO (p < .001).

Table 4.

Correlations Between Career Futures Inventory–Revised (CFI-R) Subscales and Validation Measures

	CFI-R Subscales
Measures	CA	NCO	OA	Support	WLB
CDSE	.58	−.55	.42	.39	.50
CDDQ	−.50	.58	−.30	−.31	−.41
Problem-focused	.28	−.21	.10	.26	.24
Emotion-focused	.21	−.16	.08	.16	.13
Avoidant-focused	−.30	.41	−.18	−.23	−.32
Decidedness	.38	−.41	.19	.23	.22
Comfort	.46	−.48	.34	.28	.34
Reasons	.47	−.56	.39	.28	−.40
LOT-R	.33	−.37	.18	.22	.33

Note. N = 348.

CDSE = Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale; CDDQ = Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire; LOT-R = Life Orientation Test–Revised; CA = career agency; NCO = negative career outlook; OA = occupational awareness; WLB = work–life balance.

Table 5.

Means, Standard Deviations, and t Test Results for Career Futures Inventory–Revised (CFI-R) Scales by Major Status

CFI-R Subscale	t Test	p Value	Declared Major (N = 244)	No Declared Major (N = 102)
CFI-R Subscale	t Test	p Value	M (SD)	M (SD)
Career Agency	2.14	.033	3.98 (.61)	3.83 (.61)
Negative Career Outlook	−2.84^**	.005	1.98 (.84)	2.26 (.86)
Occupational Awareness	2.74^**	.006	3.38 (.76)	3.14 (.78)
Support	2.76^**	.006	4.07 (.73)	3.84 (.70)
Work–Life Balance	0.18	.850	3.75 (.76)	3.73 (.65)

Note. N = 346.

^** p < .01.

Table 6.

Means, Standard Deviations, and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) Results for Career Futures Inventory–Revised (CFI-R) Scales by Career Choice Status

		Career Choice Status
		Undecided (N = 103)	Tentatively Decided (N = 110)	Decided (N = 128)
CFI-R Subscale	F	M (SD)	M (SD)	M (SD)
Career agency	13.16^***	3.72 (.61)	3.92 (.59)	4.12 (.58)
Negative career outlook	10.46^***	2.36 (.95)	1.99 (.68)	1.87 (.84)
Occupational awareness	3.86 (ns)	3.15 (.77)	3.32 (.72)	3.43 (.79)
Support	4.29 (ns)	3.87 (.68)	3.96 (.70)	4.14 (.78)
Work–life balance	2.60 (ns)	3.61 (.67)	3.74 (.72)	3.83 (.77)

Note.

^*** p < .001.

Discussion

Building on a fundamental legacy of career maturity and adaptability research, the CFI-R measures important constructs related to wise career decision making for adults facing contemporary struggles. In particular, the CFI-R scales comprise aspects of Savickas’ (2005) dimensions of career adaptability (e.g., control and confidence), Bandura’s (1986) agency, and the basic needs of autonomy, relatedness, and competence highlighted by Deci and Ryan (1985). Contrary to our intent to establish numerous separate dimensions of control, confidence, optimism, and self-awareness, these constructs formed a composite career agency dimension. Moreover, drawing on the Parsonian model, the CFI-R incorporates critical client intake information to help enhance career counseling effectiveness. The results reported herein establish the internal consistency and initial construct validity of the CFI-R.

Several improvements to the original CFI are noteworthy. Acknowledging important connections between control, self-efficacy, and self-awareness, the new Career Agency scale offers an important perspective for viewing clients’ perception of their influence on their own career development process. Also, the Occupational Awareness scale expands the 3-item Perceived Knowledge of the Job Market scale of the original CFI to incorporate changes in technology, general economic trends, and career exploration behaviors. The recent attention to relational aspects of vocational development (Blustein, 2011) has been incorporated into the CFI-R. The Support scale covers emotional and instrumental aspects from family, friends, and other resources. The WLB scale offers an internally consistent and concise means for addressing respondents’ views of how well they manage the interface between these domains. The CFI-R offers a more comprehensive attention to content that clients and counselors should examine to optimize responses to career challenges. Overall, the CFI-R encompasses diverse content examining internal and external resources necessary to demonstrate readiness for managing a career in the 21st century.

Participants’ views of their career futures related systematically to personal characteristics frequently assessed in career counseling. In addition to career assessment with individual clients, the CFI-R can be used to examine various outcomes of career development interventions for research and evaluation purposes. The CFI-R scales broadly related to career decision self-efficacy and career decision difficulties in the expected directions and magnitudes, supporting the construct validity of these aspects of the CFI-R. Career Agency showed the most overlap with validation measures and appears to be the most general measure. Overall, Career Agency and NCO showed the strongest effects related to career decision status. These results, combined with the moderate relationships between the CFI-R and CDP scales, suggest important connections between the establishment of career plans and expectations for future among these college students. Participants who had selected a college major demonstrated higher scores on OA and Support, and lower scores on NCO, compared to those who had not. Career Agency and WLB were not related to college major status.

Theory and research addressing career adaptability has sprouted from developmental and individual differences traditions. Additionally, social cognitive and goal-based perspectives offer insights into the complex transactions between persons, behaviors, and environments. Research involving the CFI-R may also contribute to these general literatures examining various prominent constructs within the career context. Career Agency related positively to adaptive coping methods, whereas NCO showed opposite relationships. These results are consistent with previous studies (e.g., Aspinwall et al., 2001). These self-regulatory processes have been examined extensively and connect with perceptions of confidence versus doubt in seeking goals within specific behavioral domains such as work life (Carver & Connor-Smith, 2010). As reflected in the words of Bandura (2006), many aspects of the CFI-R relate to personal agency:

To make their way successfully through a complex world full of challenges and hazards, people have to make sound judgments about their capabilities, anticipate the probable effects of different events and courses of action, size up socio-structural opportunities and constraints, and regulate their behavior accordingly. (p. 168)

Bandura’s views on agency also mirror the empirical connections found herein, as the Career Agency scale includes content reflecting control, career transition confidence, optimism, and self-awareness. He elaborated on how self-efficacy beliefs employ agentic processes to “affect whether individuals think optimistically or pessimistically, in self-enhancing or self-debilitating ways” (p. 170) thereby affecting goal mechanisms and persistence to overcome challenges. Within the context of planned or unplanned career transitions, the Career Agency scale therefore likely plays a critical role in whether or not individuals take charge of their own career development by intentionally pursuing relevant educational goals and adapting to changing skill requirements and life role demands. The CFI-R potentially captures the nexus of ideas comprising human agency and career adaptability (i.e., Bandura’s “agentic adaptability”), including self-awareness and deliberative control of various self-regulatory mechanisms (e.g., self-reactiveness) that help individuals embrace confidence and positive views of the future while managing transitions.

Attention to career adaptability has immediate relevance to workers in transition. However, students and other young adults likewise must carefully navigate numerous planned and unplanned transitions as they launch into adulthood (Fouad & Bynner, 2008). College students must cope with many challenges, including transitions to campus, new relationships, academic expectations, work/education-life balance, and barriers to success. Career agency may provide important insights regarding clients’ use of adaptive coping methods and indicate areas where interventions may prove beneficial. For instance, clients who score low on career agency and/or endorsing NCO can be encouraged to consider the manner in which they cope with their vocational difficulties and evaluate the effectiveness of their coping strategies. Counselors can help such clients develop more adaptive coping skills, which is likely to help enhance their capacity to navigate career transitions more effectively.

Career adaptability provides a framework for attending to how individuals view their futures and supports interventions based on their needs. The CFI-R can be used as an intake assessment tool to help determine clients’ career-related needs and establish treatment goals. For example, if a client endorses a high level of agency, including self-awareness, but a low level of occupational awareness, counseling may focus on increasing self-efficacy to seek career information necessary to make decisions that support their personal values and interests. Incorporating career decision-making process dimensions into counseling supplements the assessment of individual differences. Information from the CFI-R can set the stage for interventions that build personal strengths and support that are essential for adjusting to complex and changing work environments. At the organizational level, counselors and administrators can use the CFI-R to measure outcomes, such as effectiveness of individual career counseling, as well as evaluating group or class interventions.

While the CFI-R assesses potential areas of career adaptability deficiencies, overly high levels of these qualities may also hinder the career development process. Support, for example, may appear as an overtly positive aspect of a person’s life. However, too much support from significant others may thwart critical autonomy, control, confidence, and exploration of self and options necessary to make wise decisions. The Support and WLB measures may facilitate exploration of family roles and relationships, which can enable clients to optimize benefits of support while enhancing insights regarding autonomous decisions. Counselors naturally provide encouragement to support this process and assist in identifying additional sources of support.

Several limitations of the current study must be addressed. First, due to the cross-sectional design, we were unable to examine causal relationships between the constructs. A longitudinal design would enable researchers to investigate the CFI-R dimensions over time. Next, results of the present investigation may not generalize beyond students at these universities. Individuals from other types of educational settings or life circumstances (e.g., layoff, retirement) may yield different results. In particular, there is a need to establish norms for specialized settings and age groups. Finally, due to the expanded number of scales in the CFI-R and time limitations on survey administration, we were unable to examine validity of the Support, WLB, or OA measures with much precision. Future research should include common validation measures of these constructs and career maturity.

Future research needs to examine the proposed factor structure through a confirmatory factor analysis. Because the CFI-R addresses content especially relevant to working adults in transition, more research on this population is warranted. Longitudinal studies examining these facets of career adaptability across key transition points (e.g., high school to postsecondary, school to work, mid-career change, and retirement) will enhance understanding of how to navigate change effectively. We are hopeful that this measure can inform researchers and practitioners as they address the career development needs and resources of adults navigating complex change processes. Moreover, this measure can contribute to advancing theoretical statements related to how people plan and adjust their career plans within a changing economic landscape.

This article introduced the CFI-R, but ongoing studies are examining the psychometric properties further and investigating the utility of the CFI-R in clinical settings and across various populations. Future studies will shed more light on the structure of these factors through confirmatory factor analysis, which may identify higher order or nested factors. Ongoing data collection efforts will establish norms for the scales across different groups (e.g., clients, those who have made successful transitions, college graduates, working adults). Combinations of the scales may be employed to create special scales that distinguish groups (e.g., retained students vs. dropouts; successful “adaptive” career changers vs. long-term unemployed, or degree of counseling treatment success).

Conclusion

Since the latter part of the 20th century, a rapidly changing global economy and technological advances have demanded that people adjust to the changing context affecting their work lives. Swanson and Parcover (1998) called career adaptability “a useful construct for examining what it is that career practitioners do, and what they will need to do in the future, given the changing structure of work” (p. 99). Coping with these challenges requires increased self-awareness, occupational knowledge, and wise decisional processes. Through ongoing research and practical applications, the CFI-R can contribute to efforts to advance understanding of career adaptability.

Footnotes

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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The Career Futures Inventory–Revised

Abstract

Keywords

Career Adaptability

Knowledge of Self and Work Environments

Self awareness

Occupational awareness

Self-Regulatory Coping Related to Career Behaviors

Optimism

Control

Career transition confidence

The Interface Between the Occupational Self and Relational World

Support

WLB

The Present Investigation

Study 1: Scale Development Method

Participants

Results

Study 2: CFI-R Validation Method

Participants

Measures

Demographic and Career Planning Questionnaire

Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire (CDDQ)

Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale–Short Form (CDSE-SF)

Brief COPE

Life orientation test–revised (LOT-R)

Career Decision Profile (CDP)

Results

Discussion

Conclusion

Footnotes

References