The Construction of Career Development Patterns and Its Applications to Academic and Career Counseling

• Published in: Jiao yu ke xue yan jiu qi kan 2010-06, Vol.55 (2), p.29
• Main Authors: Wu-Tien, Wu, Maw-Fa Chien, Tung-Kuei Hung, Shu, Tzung-Huei, Hsiao-Lan, Chau, Chang, Chih-Hsuan, Tao-Yu, Wu
• Format: Article
• Language: Chinese
• Subjects: Achievement tests; Career Counseling; Career Development; Career development planning; Careers; Counseling; High School Students; Students
• ISSN: 2073-753X
• DOI: 10.3966/2073753X2010065502002

The purposes of this study are twofolds: 1) To explore the “career development patterns” (CDPs) of senior high school students (SHSs) and define the meaning of the CDP; 2) To exmine the validity of the CDP and the application of the CDP to academic and career counseling. There are three parts of this study: 1) The construction of CDPs: 1,443 SHSs from 20 senior high schools took the Work Value Inventory, the Career Exploration Inventory, the Multiple Intelligences Scales, and the Academic Achievement Tests. Eight CDPs were then identified by means of factor analysis, cannonnical correlation analysis and comprehensive judgement based on 30 variables of the five measures. The eight CDPs were Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional, Humanistic, and Scienticic; 2) The validitaion of CDPs: 327 students from 4 SHSs served as the subjects of validitaion. The “My Charactistics” and the “My Students’ Charactistics” checklists and rating scales were devised for students and teachers and exployed as the criteria of concurrent validity. It was found that most of the criterion measures were significantly correlated to CDP measures and had significant differential effects on two extreme CDP groups. However, students’ self-reports were found more effective than teachers’ ratings, and the concret and checklist method was more effective than the subjective over-all rating, especially for teachers; 3) The application of CDPs: The interpretation of CDPs was made and further revised by focus-group discussion, followed by identifing the subjects with superior CDPs (T≧60) at four senior high schools. It was found that there were 41.6% of the total subjects with one or more superior CDPs. However, there existed salient inter- and intra-individual differences in this regard. Finally, applications and suggestions of CDPs in academic and career counseling are given according to the research findings.