engleski

Career decision-making difficulties in early and middle adolescence

Career decision-making is an important research topic in vocational psychology, and an essential element of career counselling practice. The related outcomes are especially important for adolescents who are choosing their occupational or educational paths. Due to the complexity of career decision-making tasks, many adolescents face difficulties during this process. Such difficulties, if not adequately dealt with, may lead to a suboptimal career choice. This study aims to identify the level of career decision-making difficulties, as well as some of its personal and educational correlates in the samples of 960 early (age 12-13 ; 42.7% of boys) and 1377 middle adolescents (age 16-17 ; 38.6% of boys). The data was collected as a part of the project Free Career Choice applying group administration of computerized questionnaires in schools. The Decision-making Difficulties Questionnaire measures ten difficulties, that could combine into three major difficulty categories (Lack of Readiness, Lack of Information and Inconsistent Information), and the total score. The CDDQ reliability in both subsamples was high for Lack of Information and Inconsistent Information scales and subscales ranging from .79 to .96. For the Lack of Readiness scale and subscales the reliabilities range from.64 to .79. The total CDDQ reliability was .94 in both samples. The CFA confirmed that data fit well to the proposed three-factor structure in both samples (CFI=.961, RMSEA=.86, and CFI=.960, RMSEA=.87), and structural age invariance was confirmed. The most pronounced difficulties in both samples belong to Lack of Readiness (i.e. General indecisiveness and Dysfunctional beliefs) and Lack of Information category (i.e. Lack of knowledge about the decision-making and Lack of information about the occupations). The early and middle adolescents did not differ significantly by the mean levels of Lack of Readiness, Inconsistent Information, and total CDDQ scores while some unsubstantial difference was found for Lack of Information (η2=.003). To further analyse the characteristics of adolescents with different levels and types of decision-making difficulties we conducted a two-step cluster analysis, both on the scales and subscales levels, and both samples which all converged to two clusters solutions, basically distinguishing adolescents with high and low difficulty levels. By the binary logistic regression, we try to predict the group membership by adolescents’ gender, school achievement and socioeconomic status. The regression models explained only 4.2% of group membership variance in early, and 2.2% in middle adolescents’ samples. The school achievement was the only weak significant predictor in both samples (exp(b)=.71, and .79, respectively) meaning that adolescents with lower achievement have a somewhat higher chance to belong to the group with more difficulties. Based on these results we concluded that career decision-making difficulties are equally pronounced in early and middle adolescence and affect equally boys and girls and adolescents from different social backgrounds. A higher school achievement plays just a minor role in suppressing these difficulties. Thus, we see career decision-making as a universal problem that Croatian adolescents face, both in elementary and secondary schools, and we strongly advocate for inclusive career counselling and guidance approach embedded in school curricula or via obligatory career development school programmes.

career decision-making difficulties, sociodemographic determinants, adolescence

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