The well-being outcomes of career guidance

ABSTRACT

The potential for career guidance to impact on well-being has received insufficient attention in the UK. There are both conceptual and empirical reasons to expect that the impacts may be positive, but a lack of evidence directly testing this proposition. Career guidance has commonalities with therapeutic counselling suggesting analogous effects, and it promotes positive engagement in work and learning, which may be associated with health benefits. There are implications for services in reconciling health and employment objectives. However, the promotion of well-being need not imply quasi-clinical ways of working. A call is made for more research and debate in the career guidance community as to the extent and implications of the potentially important relationship between career guidance and well-being.     

The Importance of Career Insecurity for Turnover Intentions in the Dutch Military

The effects of two dimensions of job insecurity (job loss insecurity and career insecurity) on turnover intentions were tested in a sample from the Dutch armed forces (N = 3,580) after a major downsizing operation was announced. Results suggested that especially perceptions of career insecurity increased turnover intentions. Next to this direct effect, career insecurity was also associated with lowered affective organizational commitment which in turn increased turnover intentions as well. Our results imply that, at least during downsizing operations, a multidimensional conceptualization of job insecurity helps to predict important organizational outcomes in the military. Both perceptions of the risk of losing one’s job and perceptions of possible future career opportunities are important for employee retention.     

The careless or the conscientious : Who profits most from goal progress?

Although research indicates that making progress on personal work goals predicts positive job attitudes, little is known about the role of conscientiousness in moderating this relationship. Congruence theories suggest that job attitudes will be more dependent on goal progress when employees are high in conscientiousness, whereas compensation theories suggest the opposite. We test these competing hypotheses in a three-wave, 4-month longitudinal panel study of 121 trainee teachers, who are at their early stages of career development. Conscientiousness moderated the relationships between progress on personal work goals and job attitudes according to the compensatory pattern, such that employees displayed stronger increases in job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment in response to goal progress when they were low rather than high in conscientiousness. Our results help to resolve conflicting findings about the relationship between goal progress and job attitudes and adjudicate competing hypotheses about the role of conscientiousness in moderating this relationship.     

Career counsellors' perceptions of the severity of career decision-making difficulties

Individuals differ in the type and severity of the difficulties they face when making a career decision. Relying on the Gati, Krausz, and Osipow (1996) taxonomy of career decision-making difficulties, we elicited the judgements of 28 career counselling experts about factors that contribute to the perceived severity of the difficulties. Difficulties attributed to an internal or emotional cause were judged as more severe than difficulties attributed to an external or cognitive cause. With respect to the consequences, difficulties that prevent making a decision, or those that require long-term treatment, were judged as more severe than difficulties that may lead to a non-optimal decision, and those that require a short-term treatment. The analysis revealed that the factor that most affected the experts' severity judgements was the expected length of treatment. Treatment priority was affected only partially by severity, reflecting the role of other considerations.     

The protean career orientation as predictor of career outcomes: Evaluation of incremental validity and mediation effects

A protean career orientation is assumed to be beneficial for career development but researchers have only recently started to empirically evaluate the concept. Conducting two studies based on three independent samples of university students and working professionals in Germany, we address issues of concurrent validity, predictive incremental validity and mechanisms linking the protean orientation to career outcomes. The first study showed that in a sample of 104 German employees different measures of the protean career orientation all correlated highly, but not identically, to a range of work and career attitudes. Using bootstrapping analysis, a second study with a six-month prospective examination among 419 German university students and a cross-sectional analysis among 526 German employees showed that a protean career orientation predicts proactive career behaviors and career satisfaction beyond a proactive disposition and core self-evaluations, respectively. Moreover, the protean career orientation was a significant mediator of these two personality constructs on both career outcomes. Cumulatively, the studies enrich our understanding of how and when a protean career orientation is related to important career outcomes.     

Cognitive–motivational antecedents of career decision-making processes in Portuguese high school students: A longitudinal study

In this study we propose an integrated framework of the antecedents of identity development and well/ill-being for high school students (N = 462) in the transition to higher education/job market. One study was conducted to investigate the effects of basic psychological need-satisfaction/frustration (as proposed within self-determination theory) and career decision-making self-efficacy (posited by social cognitive career theory) on the identity dimensions and experienced well/ill-being. Three longitudinal nested models were tested: a need-satisfaction/self-efficacy main effects model, an identity main effects model and a reciprocal main-effects model. The reciprocal effects between the variables were favored by the data. Basic need-satisfaction and career decision making self-efficacy positively predicted proactive exploration and commitment-making, while basic need-frustration predicted both diminished well-being and ill-being. Reciprocally, proactive exploration investments positively predicted whereas ruminative exploration negatively predicted, need-satisfaction and career decision-making self-efficacy. Implications for the design of career interventions are discussed and suggestions for future research proposed.     

Antecedents and consequences to perceived career goal–progress discrepancies

Informed by a goal setting and self-regulation perspective, we tested a model of perceived career goal–progress discrepancies (i.e., perception of progress made towards achieving career goals relative to where one should be if the goals were to be attained), which proposed that negative feedback from significant others predicts career goal–progress discrepancies, which, in turn, predicts levels of career-related distress. The model also proposes that active feedback seeking strengthens the relationship between feedback from significant others and goal–progress discrepancies, and that career self-regulatory behaviours (career exploration and planning) weaken the relationship between career goal–progress discrepancies and career distress. Using a sample of 420 young adults (mean age = 20.3 years, 73% female), we found that feedback from significant others was related to both career goal–progress discrepancies and career distress, career goal–progress discrepancies were related to career distress, and goal–progress discrepancies partially mediated between feedback from significant others and career distress. Supporting the moderated effects, goal–progress discrepancies were higher at higher levels of negative feedback for those more actively seeking feedback, and career distress was lower at lower levels of discrepancy for those more engaged in exploration and planning.     

Social cognitive model of adjustment to engineering majors: Longitudinal test across gender and race/ethnicity

We conducted a longitudinal test of a social cognitive model of academic adjustment in a sample of 732 engineering students. The model, designed to explain students' satisfaction with and intentions to persist in their majors, integrated features of social cognitive career theory's (SCCT) segmental models of satisfaction, interest, choice, and performance (Lent & Brown, 2006; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994). Students completed measures of academic support, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, interests, satisfaction, positive affect, and intended persistence at three time points (at the end of their second, third, and fourth semesters in engineering). A bidirectional version of the model offered good fit to the data, both in the larger sample and across gender and racial/ethnic groups. Self-efficacy was the most reliable direct predictor of academic satisfaction and intended persistence across the third and fourth semesters, though other social cognitive variables also contributed, either directly or indirectly, to predictions at one time point or the other. We consider implications of the findings for further research and practice on academic adjustment and persistence in STEM fields.     

“When you're coming from the reserve you're not supposed to make it”: Stories of Aboriginal athletes pursuing sport and academic careers in “mainstream” cultural contexts

ObjectivesThis project responds to the call for athletic career development and transitions research that centralizes the constitutive role of culture in athletes' experiences (Stambulova & Alfermann, 2009; Stambulova & Ryba, 2014). Within, we explore the cultural transitions of Aboriginal hockey players (14–22 years old) relocated into “mainstream” (Euro-Canadian) cultural contexts to pursue dual careers as students and athletes.DesignThe research was framed as a cultural sport psychology initiative. The project was rooted in a local Indigenous decolonizing methodology, which was brought forward via a participatory action research approach.MethodsMandala drawings and conversational interviews were employed as open-ended data collection processes that enabled the participants to share their stories and meanings through their own cultural perspectives. Vignettes were then used to present their accounts.ResultsThe participants' careers as athletes and students were precariously navigated within larger cultural tensions to: (a) deal with a loss of belonging in the Aboriginal community; (b) break down negative stereotypes and attitudes that Aboriginal people are not able to “make it”; and (c) give back to the Aboriginal communities they relocated away from.ConclusionsThrough a culturally resonant mode of knowledge production, the research uncovers contextual understandings of the cultural transitions experienced by Aboriginal athletes, revealing how this transition intersects with and shapes their dual careers. The project offers insight into the central role of culture in shaping athletes' dual careers, and provides impetus for more idiosyncratic approaches to be adopted in future research.