Unpacking the role of self-esteem in career uncertainty: A self-determination perspective

The aim of this study is to explain why students with high self-esteem have lower career uncertainty than students with low self-esteem. Based on self-determination theory, students with high self-esteem would have higher efficacy in making decisions, which would encourage them to choose a major for self-concordance, such as interest and ability, and increase their course involvement. Both factors are assumed to be related to lower career uncertainty. Data from a national survey of the Taiwan Higher Education Database within the Survey Research Data Archive from juniors at 92 colleges and universities in Taiwan (N = 7418) were analyzed to examine the model. Results supported the proposed model by showing that students with high self-esteem had lower career uncertainty because they chose a major for self-concordant reasons and had a strong motivation to learn, both of which contribute to lower career uncertainty.     

Young Adults' Attitudes toward Multiple Role Planning: The Influence of Gender, Career Traditionality, and Marriage Plans

This study examined personal and relationship influences on attitudes toward multiple role planning, specifically preparing to combine work and partnership roles. Survey data were collected from 66 young adult heterosexual couples. Results revealed that marriage plans related positively to knowledge and certainty about multiple role planning. Gender and career traditionality interacted with marriage plans in its influence on commitment to and involvement in multiple roles. Moreover, attitudes toward multiple role planning mediated the association between marriage plans and planning activity for work-family balance. Implications for research and application in multiple role planning are addressed.     

Ethnic Differences in Grade Trajectories During the Transition to Junior High

The transition from elementary to junior high school is difficult for some children, as indicated by a drop in grades in the new school setting from the beginning to end of the year. Finer-grain analysis of grade trajectories in the first year of junior high may reflect important differences among groups. In the present study, variables predicting linear and quadratic grade trajectories over the seventh grade were examined using a structural equation model (SEM, AMOS-4) and curve estimation procedures. Participants were 214 boys and 259 girls entering junior high (52% Anglo, 36% Hispanics, primarily of Mexican descent, and 12% Blacks). Three trajectory patterns were observed: “sliders,” students who showed a fairly steady grade decline over the year (characteristic of Anglos), “steadies,” students who varied little over the year (characteristic of Blacks), and “rebounders,” students whose grades dropped to a minimum in the fourth 6-week period, then showed limited recovery (characteristic of Hispanics). In the SEM, a lower intercept (representing the average of sixth grade grades) was associated with minority ethnic/racial status (Hispanic or Black), using more emotional discharge to cope, having a lower percentage of adults in the support network, poorer family functioning, and greater depression. Being Black was associated with a positive path coefficient to the linear slope of the grade trajectory, while a negative path coefficient was associated with using more emotional discharge in coping. The quadratic element (drop in grades with some recovery) was more pronounced for Hispanic participants, less pronounced for Black participants, and more pronounced when poorer family functioning was reported. Curve estimation procedures confirmed these ethnic/racial group differences. Reasons for such differences and their implications for schools and families are discussed.     

Development of Academic Skills from Preschool Through Second Grade: Family and Classroom Predictors of Developmental Trajectories

Children's experiences with their parents and teachers were related to the acquisition of academic skills from preschool through second grade. Individual and group growth curves were estimated, and individual patterns of change were predicted from selected demographic, family, and classroom characteristics to identify multiple pathways to early academic competence. Standardized assessments of language and academic skills and parent and teacher surveys were collected on 511 children beginning in the second-to-last year of child care through the third year of elementary school. As expected, children tended to show better academic skills across time if their parents had more education and reported more progressive parenting beliefs and practices. Statistical interactions between family background and teacher-child relationships indicated that a closer relationship with the teacher was positively related to language skills for African-American children and to reading competence for children whose parents reported more authoritarian attitudes. These results provide further evidence that social processes in classrooms are important for academic competence for children considered at risk for academic problems.     

运动员的生活满意感:个人自尊与集体自尊的贡献

评估了个人自尊与集体自尊在预测运动员的一般生活满意感和训练比赛满意感时的相对重要性。被试为139名中国运动员,男68名,女71名,平均年龄19．64岁。分层回归的结果发现,在控制了人口统计学变量、个人自尊和社会支持3类变量以后,集体自尊单独解释了训练比赛满意感总方差的13％。优势分析的结果表明,预测训练比赛满意感时,集体自尊最为重要,贡献了已解释方差的67％。这些结果提示,需要用不同的自尊来预测不同的满意感。     

Self-Efficacy for Enhancing Students’ Career and College Readiness: A Survey of Professional School Counselors

Grounded in Bandura’s (1997) self-efficacy theory and Savickas’s (2011) career construction theory, this study examined school counselors’ beliefs about whether they can perform specific tasks related to supporting students’ career and college readiness. A national sample of school counselors (N = 2,047) completed the School Counselor Self-Efficacy for Enhancing Student Career and College Readiness Scale (Baker, Parikh-Foxx, & Martinez, 2017). Findings from a survey research design indicated that the extent of related training and the challenges associated with implementation of career service delivery were of concern to participants. Recommendations for training, practice, and further research are presented.     

Comparison of women engineers who persist in or depart from engineering

The current research examined differences between women engineers who persisted in an engineering career versus those who left engineering using a combination of two prominent theories of career change: social cognitive career theory (SCCT, Lent, Brown & Hackett, 1994; 2002) and integrated model of career change (Rhodes & Doering, 1983). The two groups of women did not differ in three domains of self-confidence or outcome expectations (engineering tasks, navigating organizational climate, or multiple roles), in vocational interests, or in workplace barriers. Women who continue in engineering do differ from those who leave in their experience of workplace supports and their levels of occupational commitment. Engineering turnover intentions and occupational commitment emerged as the two key variables that explained 33.4% of the variance in persistence in engineering careers. We discuss the implications of the results in terms of theoretical development and practical implications for organizations.     

Latent profiles of work motivation in adolescents in relation to work expectations,goal engagement,and changes in work experiences

Motivation plays a key role in successful entry into working life. Based on a cross-sectional and a one-year longitudinal study, we used a person-centered approach to explore work-related motivation (i.e., autonomous goals, positive affect, and occupational self-efficacy) among 577 students in 8th grade (Study 1) and 949 adolescents in vocational training (Study 2). Based on latent profile analysis, in both studies we identified four groups that were characterized by different levels of overall motivation and one group characterized by low positive affect and mean levels in autonomous goals and self-efficacy. Profiles characterized by high levels of motivation showed the highest levels of positive work expectations and goal engagement and the lowest levels of negative work expectations in Study 1 and the highest levels of person-job fit, work engagement, and job satisfaction in Study 2. Moreover, latent difference score analysis showed that motivational profiles predicted changes in person-job fit and work engagement across one year but not in job satisfaction. The results imply that career counselors should be aware of characteristic motivational patterns of clients that may require specific counseling approaches.     

Forum: Crafting the Introductory Course in Religious Studies

This series of short essays considers the complex choices and decision‐making processes of instructors preparing to teach, and continuing to teach, introductory courses in religious studies. In a paper originally presented in the University of Chicago's “The Craft of Teaching in the Academic Study of Religion” series, Russell McCutcheon explores a “baker's dozen” of such choices and the larger pedagogical problems with which they are entwined, ranging from classic questions of skill development and content coverage to philosophical concerns around students' identification with their topics of study and institutional concerns around governance and assessment. Aaron Hollander provides a brief introduction and four doctoral students at the University of Chicago Divinity School respond to McCutcheon's essay, widening its scope, testing its applicability, and interrogating its undergirding suppositions from the perspective of early‐career educators in the field.     

Career and work attitudes of blue-collar workers,and the impact of a natural disaster chance event on the relationships between intention to quit and actual quit behaviour

Despite being part of a highly visible and important occupational group, blue-collar workers have, to date, been under-represented in careers research. We explore the relevance and applicability of new career concepts to blue-collar employees, specifically, bus drivers. Based on a survey of 112 bus drivers, we test a model specifying the relationship between career attitude, perceived organizational support, psychological contract, and job satisfaction, as well as intention to quit. Employing a two-phase data collection process, we also test relationships between intentions and actual quit behaviour. Our results support the validity of career theories for blue-collar workers but with notable exceptions, such as lack of relationships between protean career and intention to quit. Contrary to intention-behaviour theory we find that actual quit behaviour was not related to intention to quit, which we attribute to a significant external chance event, a devastating earthquake, which took place during the study period. In addition, we identify relationships that appear to be unique to blue-collar workers.