Journal of Career Assessment

Technology holds the promise of greatly altering the conduct of interest assessment. I review five technological advances that currently exist and present how they can be incorporated into our interest measures and procedures: (a) dynamic assessment using item response theory, (b) adapting interpretations to individual users, (c) incorporating response latency, (d) gamification of interest measures, and (e) incorporating big data and machine learning. Using these advances in our assessments and procedures can structurally change what we do and enhance the precision of our measures.

The current study focused on the effect of assessment methods on estimates of gender differences in interests across Holland’s themes. College students (121 women, 76 men) rated their interests in Holland-based activities and occupations using Likert-type scales, and they also completed a card sorting assessment of Holland interests using occupation-based items. Gender differences were consistently observed for realistic and social interests with the magnitude of the observed gender differences varying by measure type. A Gender × Measure interaction accounted for 33% of the variance observed in interest scores: Occupation-based scales produced larger differences than activity-based scales, and the card sorting assessment produced larger gender differences than the Likert-type rating scales. Therefore, the choice of interest measure used in career counseling may influence the extent to which gender affects the career decision-making process, which may be particularly important when exploring nontraditional career choices for women and men.

John Holland’s theory of career orientations advises people to select careers that are congruent with their personalities. Similarly, self-concordance theory, based in self-determination theory, advises people to select personal goals that match their autonomous interests and identifications. We compared the predictive efficacy of the two theories in two studies of undergraduates, using the six career areas of Holland theory (RIASEC: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional) as a common base. Multilevel logit modeling in Study 1 showed that both the Holland score and an aggregate self-concordance score predicted independent variance in the outcome variable, current career choices. These effects were replicated in Study 2. Supplementary analyses showed that the identified motivation subscale was the primary source of these effects. Thus, career counselors may want to consider assessing students’ self-concordance for the six RIASEC domains, in particular their levels of identified motivation for those domains, in addition to assessing their Holland codes.

The current study examined predictors of undergraduate science students’ intentions to attend graduate school and participate in undergraduate research. We used social cognitive career theory to test our hypothesized model using a sample (N = 411) of life science and physical science majors and examined basic interests in these disciplines as mediating variables. Among life science majors, results of structural equation modeling indicated that microbiology interest mediated the relationship between scientific self-efficacy (SSE) and graduate education intentions (GEIs) and the latter variable also mediated the relationship between microbiology interest and undergraduate research intentions (URIs). The model for physical science majors did not provide a good fit to the data, therefore path coefficients associated with this model were not interpreted. Implications for counseling interventions based on patterns of career intention formation in the life and physical sciences are discussed.

The present study examined the role of calling in a social cognitive model of well-being using a sample of 328 South Korean teachers. The model incorporating calling into the social cognitive model of well-being demonstrated an excellent fit, and our variables accounted for significant variance in job satisfaction (47%) and life satisfaction (38%). Among the 12 direct paths of the proposed model, 10 hypothesized paths were significant. The direct paths from positive affect to calling, self-efficacy, job satisfaction, and life satisfaction; from calling to self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and life satisfaction; from self-efficacy to outcome expectations; from outcome expectations to job satisfaction; and from job satisfaction to life satisfaction were significant. Additionally, the mediating paths between positive affect and life satisfaction via calling, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and job satisfaction were significant. The practical implications for enhancing teachers’ job and life satisfaction and future directions of research were discussed.

Underemployment is a global problem that is increasing in the context of recovering economic recessions and insecure job markets. In this context, vocational psychologists can play a unique role by determining the processes by which underemployment relates to aspects of work well-being, such as meaningful work. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine the relation between underemployment and meaningful work as well as to investigate potential mediators of this relation. Specifically, with a sample of 351 working adults in the United States, we investigated how underemployment related to the meaningful work via the self-determination needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Partially supporting hypotheses, underemployment was negatively related to autonomy and relatedness but positively related to competence. In turn, autonomy and competence were positively related to meaningful work, whereas relatedness was unrelated to meaningful work. These results offer insights into how underemployment might affect the meaningfulness of work and how employers and practitioners can help underemployed workers.

While the Career Indecision Profile–Short (CIP-Short) has demonstrated sound reliability and validity as a brief measure of career indecision in students, its psychometric performance in employees remains unclear. To facilitate research and practice on career indecision within the employee population, the present study examined the internal consistency reliability, structural validity, and convergent validity of the CIP-Short in employees. Additionally, the present study examined the measurement invariance of the CIP-Short across students and employees. Based on a sample of students (n = 330) and a sample of employees (n = 436), the results revealed that (1) the CIP-Short demonstrated good internal consistency reliability in employees, (2) the CIP-Short validly measured the four-factor structure of career indecision in employees, (3) the CIP-Short was positively associated with career decision ambiguity aversion and negatively associated with career adaptability in employees, and (4) the CIP-Short demonstrated measurement invariance on configural, metric, and scalar levels across students and employees. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed, along with limitations and suggestions for future research.

The goal of the present research was to develop a model of work meaning, consisting of five orientations: job (financial compensation), career (advancement and influence), calling (prosocial duty), social embeddedness (belongingness), and busyness (filling idle time with activities). Two versions of the Work Orientation Questionnaire (WOQ), which measures these five orientations, were developed—for young adults and for working adults. Study 1 describes the development of the WOQ and psychometric properties for young adults. Exploratory (N = 200) and confirmatory (N = 447) factor analyses supported a five-factor solution, and the five scales, which correspond to the five orientations, had adequate internal consistency reliabilities (median = .81). The divergent validity of the WOQ was supported, as shown by the negligible associations of the five orientations with the 12 scales of the Career Decision-Making Profiles questionnaire. In Study 2, the analyses of the responses of 506 employed adults also supported the five-dimensional structure, and four of the WOQ scales were associated with work satisfaction (R ² = .33). Implications for research and practice are discussed along with future research directions.

There are many open questions concerning the development of calling, and longitudinal empirical evidence is limited. We know that a calling is associated with many beneficial outcomes, but we do not know how it changes through time and what predicts these changes. Previous studies have shown that calling is relatively stable at the sample level. We show that, at the individual level, calling shows huge variations through time. We identified nine developmental trajectories that are typical across facets of calling, and we found evidence that the development of a calling is fostered by the extent to which individuals have lived it out. We also observed that the more a calling has grown over a 2-year period, the more it is lived out during the third year. These results provide support for a developmental model of calling according to which having a calling and living it out reciprocally influence each other. The practical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed.

Taking a self-regulatory perspective, we examined the within-person relationships between time spent in job search and search outcomes (i.e., the number of job interviews/offers received), focusing especially on the moderating roles of metacognitive activities and perceived job search progress. Data collection was conducted with 12 semiweekly surveys among a sample of 132 job seekers from a university in Southern China. Our results showed that time spent in job search does not necessarily lead to more interviews, and metacognitive activities moderated this relationship. Specifically, the positive effect of time spent in job search on the number of job interviews was stronger among job seekers with low levels rather than high levels of metacognitive activities. Nevertheless, after including perceived job search progress, the moderating role of metacognitive activities was stronger among seekers with low rather than high-perceived job search progress. We found that when individuals engaged in low levels of metacognitive activities and perceived low levels of job progress, they relied on time spent in job search to obtain job interviews and offers. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Social cognitive career theory indicates that perceived barriers negatively affect career and educational self-efficacy beliefs and may also impact interests, goals, and actions. However, measurement of barriers has produced mixed results, and few quantitative studies explore the perceived barriers of rural Appalachian students. In this series of studies, we explored the perceived educational and career barriers of rural Appalachian high school students. Our goal was to identify perceived barriers, but as initial results were analyzed, we then shifted to how best to measure barriers and how culture impacted the reporting of barriers by rural Appalachian students. The results of our mixed-method series of studies offer ideas on how cultural values and beliefs may skew reporting of contextual influences on career and education.