AN EMPIRICAL DERIVATION OF CAREER DECISION SUBTYPES IN A HIGH-SCHOOL SAMPLE

Prior research has emphasized the importance of examining level of goal instability in conjunction with level of career decidedness for the purpose of designing appropriate interventions. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate whether high school students who are either high or low in career decidedness and either high or low in goal instability are significantly different from each other with regard to cognitive and affective characteristics. A discriminant analysis resulted in two significant functions that correctly classified 67.23% of the students in the derivation sample and 50.83% of the cross-validation sample. The primary indicators for the first function included the comfort level of the career decision made, knowledge of occupational information, and negative affective disposition. The primary indicators for the second function included self-efficacy and positive affective disposition. implications for counselors and for future research are discussed. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.