A Process and Outcome Study Examining Career Indecision and Indecisiveness

Despite the abundance of research on undecided and indecisive students, there is a lack of literature on the actual change process of counseling these individuals. No published studies have applied advances in single-subject methodology to career research. This study uses both process and outcome measures to investigate the counseling process with an undecided and indecisive college student to examine (a) what specific events were the most significant in each session, (b) counselor intentions in the “best” versus “worst” sessions, (c) role of the working alliance with career clients, and (d) differential counseling outcomes. Participants were two female counselors, one male undecided student, and one male indecisive student. Results (a) support previous speculation about the differential utility of interventions for undecided and indecisive clients, (b) suggest that the relationship may be important to clients in career counseling, and (c) raise questions about previously assumed intervention strategies for career clients.     

Differential Diagnosis and Treatment of Career Indecision

Although progress has been made in developing a more complete understanding of career indecision, there continues to be a need for a better diagnostic approach to career indecision.     

高三学生生涯未决的类型研究

生涯未决是生涯决策研究的一个重要问题。本文通过生涯决策困难和职业认同等测量工具调查了300名高中生,试图探讨生涯未决的类型。采用聚类分析,结果发现了5类未决类型:不知所措型、犹豫不决型、不良信念型、动机不足型、应对良好型。对总体决策困难和职业认同的差异检验证实了这五种类型。     

生涯决策中的优柔寡断

优柔寡断是跨领域地长期体验到决策困难的一般倾向, 对个人的职业生涯决策和发展的很多方面产生影响, 近年来成为职业生涯心理学中的研究热点。与优柔寡断相关的概念较多, 有必要探讨它们的中文翻译及其在生涯决策领域相关概念体系中的位置。在整理分析了优柔寡断的特点、理论解释、研究方法及相关研究后, 提出未来值得深入研究的方向是：优柔寡断的结构, 其在动态情境下对决策的影响, 其前因变量研究和纵向研究。     

Career Indecision: A Family Systems Perspective

In existing theories of vocational development career indecision is generally attributed to character deficits in the young adult. The authors present an alternative, family systems perspective on career indecision. Also, they speculate on the family patterns that contribute to career indecisiveness and on the functions that this problem may serve within the larger family network.     

Construct and concurrent validity of the Korean Career Indecision Inventory

Construct and concurrent validity of the Korean Career Indecision Inventory were examined. Data were collected from 238 South Korean college students. A confirmatory factor analysis supported the original five-factor model. As hypothesized, scores were significantly correlated with various variables such as scores on the Korean versions of the Career Decision Scale (r =.49), the Vocational Identity Scale in My Vocational Situation (r=-.63), the Career Decision-making Self-efficacy Scale (r=-.47), and Negative Affectivity (r=.37). These results support construct validity inventory. Students who indicated they were undecided about their careers had significantly higher scores than those who indicated they had decided on a career, supporting concurrent validity. Implications and limitations are discussed.     

幼师生职业决策自我效能、学校适应与职业犹豫不决之间的关系

运用自编的职业决策自我效能量表,考察334名幼师生职业决策自我效能、学校适应与其职业犹豫不决的相关关系,结果发现职业决策自我效能对学校适应预测职业犹豫不决起到部分中介作用。进一步研究发现幼师生职业决策自我效能中的目标设定、自我概念和自我评价对其学校适应预测职业犹豫不决起部分中介作用,职业信息收集和学业成绩对此的中介效应不显著。     

青少年早期职业不确定性及其影响因素

本文首先总结了国外有关青少年早期职业不确定性的研究进展,包括职业不确定性的认知和情感成分、早期职业不确定性与有效求职行为之间的联系;其次,进一步分析了影响青少年早期职业不确定性的各种主要因素,如个性差异、职业兴趣、人口学变量、早期工作经验和家庭环境;最后,对未来有关早期职业不确定性的研究方向提出展望。     

The Effects of Cognitive Restructuring and Decision-Making Training on Career Indecision

The authors designed a cognitive restructuring intervention for individuals having difficulty with career decision making and compared the intervention to a decision skills intervention and a no-treatment control. The cognitive restructuring intervention was more effective than were both decision-making training and the control condition in reducing anxiety about career decision making and in encouraging vocational exploratory behavior. Cognitive restructuring clients also reported more use of the skills they had learned, were more satisfied with the decisions they made, and found the treatment program more useful in making career decisions than did clients in the other two groups.     

Refining Measurement of Career Indecision Types: A Validity Study

The authors conducted this study to address some of the limitations in previous indecision typology research and to provide validity evidence for the indecision types that were derived. The participants were 566 first‐semester, undecided students enrolled in a career exploration course. Career indecision, personality, and ability measures were used to derive career indecision types through cluster analysis. Four distinct career indecision types were identified. Subsequently, the effect of indecision type on response to a career exploration course was examined. Level of career indecision, the criterion variable, was not differentially affected by indecision type. Implications of the findings for career counseling are discussed.     

Career Indecision: A Summary of the Research and Implications for Counselling

The vocationally-indecisive individual presents a major counselling problem. The theory and research behind career indecision is discussed and a counselling approach based on identity formation is outlined. Four identity statuses — Identity Achievements, Foreclosures, Identity Diffusions, and Moratoriums — are described and counselling approaches for each are explored.     

Growing Up Perfect: Perfectionism,Problematic Internet Use,and Career Indecision in Emerging Adults

Among emerging adults who are career indecisive, perfectionism and problematic Internet use (PIU) are underdeveloped areas of inquiry. The authors examined the relationship between perfectionism and PIU to measure their contributions to career indecision. The full model was significant, yielding an R² of .46 (p < .0001). PIU accounted for the majority of variance in career indecision (adjusted R² = .32). Career indecision was also related to maladaptive but not adaptive perfectionism. Counseling implications are discussed.     

Indecisiveness: Specificity and predictive validity

This study investigated the specificity of indecisiveness compared to trait anxiety. In addition, the predictive validity of indecisiveness for postdecisional problems with regard to choosing a major was examined. A sample of 539 adolescents participated at the beginning of Grade 12 and was followed until the first year in higher education. Factor analyses showed evidence for a differentiation between indecisiveness and trait anxiety. In addition, indecisiveness at the beginning of Grade 12 predicted less commitment to the choice of a major in higher education, which, in turn, predicted less choice stability. The effect of indecisiveness on these postdecisional problems remained significant after controlling for trait anxiety, providing further evidence for the specificity of indecisiveness. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

高中生职业生涯困惑、自我同一性和亲子依恋之间的关系研究

对700名高中学生进行问卷调查,考察高中生职业生涯困惑、自我同一性地位和亲子依恋之间的关系。结果发现:(1)意识形态领域中的四类同一性地位和人际领域的弥散型地位对职业生涯困惑有直接影响。(2)母亲依恋中的沟通因子和父亲依恋中的三个因子对中学生职业生涯困惑有直接的影响。(3)亲子依恋中的母亲沟通、父亲沟通和父亲信任因子对中学生职业生涯困惑具有直接和间接的影响;母亲疏离因子和父亲疏离因子通过自我同一性地位间接地影响中学生职业生涯困惑。     

Motivation-Hygiene Aspects of Vocational Indecision and College Achievement

Subjective and objective scales designed to assess Herzberg and Hamlin's (1961) motivation and hygiene constructs were given to 133 male university freshmen. On the basis of ACT scores and responses to a university admission form, they were classified into groups having no vocational preferences (NP), non-realistic preferences (NRP), and realistic preferences (RP). NRP and RP groups were more motivation oriented than NP group, and on one scale NRP group was more hygiene oriented than RP group. A group of 34 male clients was more motivation oriented than NP group. With ACT scores partialled out, grade-point average was correlated positively with endorsement of certain “motivator” job incentives and negatively with endorsement of some “hygiene” incentives. The findings and theory are suggested as relevant to vocational and educational counseling.     

Imperfection,Indecision, and Hoarding

Hoarding disorder is a new DSM-5 disorder that causes functional impairment and affects 2 to 6% of the population (Frost and Steketee 2014). The current study evaluated a multiple mediation model with 243 undergraduate women in which indecisiveness (VOCI; Thordarson et al. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 42(11), 1289-1314, 2004) and decisional procrastination (DPS; Mann 1982) mediated the relationship between dimensions of perfectionism (F-MPS-B; Burgess et al. 2016a) and hoarding behavior (SI-R; Frost et al. Behaviour Research And Therapy, 42(10), 1163–1182, 2004) and excessive acquiring (CAS; Frost et al. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 8, 219–242, 2012). Multiple mediational analyses indicated a significant indirect effect for decisional procrastination, but not indecisiveness, in mediating evaluative concerns (but not striving) to SI-R Total, SI-R Clutter, SIR Excessive Acquisition, and both CAS subscales. Both mediators were significant pathways between evaluative concerns and SI-R Difficulty Discarding. These findings support a cognitive behavioral model of hoarding, suggesting that evaluative concerns produces problems in decision-making that influence acquisition, discarding, and clutter.     

Vocational Certainty and Indecision in College Freshmen

Three groups of entering college freshmen, possessing varying degrees of identification of educational-vocational goals, were compared on a variety of personality, achievement, aptitude, school, and family factors. The major differences indicated that the most undecided group was more dependent than the other two groups, but equal to the most decided group in academic achievement, while a middle, or tentatively decided group, was not as successful academically as the most and least decided groups. These findings suggest that educational-vocational indecision has at least two dimensions. A need for different counseling approaches in dealing with uncertain students depending upon the antecedents of their uncertainty is likely.