This meta-analysis examined the association between two types of difficulties in career decision making—indecision and indecisiveness—and four types of self-evaluations: generalized self-efficacy, process-related self-efficacy, content-related self-efficacy, and self-esteem. Analyses were conducted on data from 86 studies (N = 54,160): Process-related self-efficacy showed stronger negative associations with career indecision than did generalized self-efficacy, content-related self-efficacy, or self-esteem. In contrast, self-esteem showed stronger negative associations with indecisiveness than with career indecision. The second part of this meta-analysis focused on differential associations between two types of self-evaluations (process-related self-efficacy and self-esteem) and the three major clusters of difficulties in career decision making (lack of readiness, lack of information, and inconsistent information). Based on 19 studies (N = 7,953), the findings showed that process-related self-efficacy was strongly and negatively associated with lack of information and inconsistent information. In contrast, self-esteem was only weakly related to the three major clusters of difficulties in career decision making. In showing that each type of self-evaluation was more strongly associated with certain types and causes of difficulties in career decision making, the present article highlighted the importance of self-evaluations in the career decision-making process.

The goal of this study was to develop and test a theoretical model of Strategies for Coping with Career Indecision (SCCI). The proposed model consists of 14 categories that represent three major coping clusters—Productive coping, Support-seeking, and Nonproductive coping. The major concepts of the model were adopted from coping theories (Frydenberg & Lewis, 1993; Skinner, Edge, Altman, & Sherwood, 2003) and adapted to the context of career decision making. To test the proposed model, the SCCI questionnaire was developed and refined using data from 10 samples (N = 3,081). Study 1 reports the development of the SCCI and its psychometric properties using an additional sample of Israelis young adults deliberating about their career decisions (N = 460). Study 2a presents the results of a confirmatory factor analysis, based on American (N = 386) and Israeli (N = 819) samples of young adults. Study 2b tests the concurrent validity of the SCCI. The results from both the American and the Israeli samples supported the hypothesized distinction among the three major coping clusters; however, Support-seeking was associated partially with Productive coping and partially with Nonproductive coping. The implications for future research and career counseling are discussed.

The goal of the present research was to develop a model of work meaning, consisting of five orientations: job (financial compensation), career (advancement and influence), calling (prosocial duty), social embeddedness (belongingness), and busyness (filling idle time with activities). Two versions of the Work Orientation Questionnaire (WOQ), which measures these five orientations, were developed—for young adults and for working adults. Study 1 describes the development of the WOQ and psychometric properties for young adults. Exploratory ( N = 200) and confirmatory ( N = 447) factor analyses supported a five-factor solution, and the five scales, which correspond to the five orientations, had adequate internal consistency reliabilities (median = .81). The divergent validity of the WOQ was supported, as shown by the negligible associations of the five orientations with the 12 scales of the Career Decision-Making Profiles questionnaire. In Study 2, the analyses of the responses of 506 employed adults also supported the five-dimensional structure, and four of the WOQ scales were associated with work satisfaction ( R ² = .33). Implications for research and practice are discussed along with future research directions.

Diagnosing the causes of clients' career indecision is among the first steps in career counseling. The present study applied latent profile analysis to identify career indecision types using the 10 difficulty scale scores of the Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire (Gati et al., 1996). In two random U.S. samples (N_total = 8,918; age range = 14-50), five profiles of career indecision were identified and replicated: (1) unmotivated (6%), (2) generally indecisive (31%), (3) unrealistic (12%), (4) uninformed (39%), and (5) conflicted (12%). Age and gender negligibly predicted career indecision type, thereby supporting the stability of the five-profile typology. Nonetheless, the female gender was associated with a greater likelihood of being classified as indecisive as opposed to unmotivated (OR = 2.13). Furthermore, the five types differed in career decision status (η² = .28) and perceived career decisional distress (η² = .29). Uninformed and conflicted individuals reported multiple career decision-making difficulties and were still considering many career alternatives, whereas the three remaining types had one salient difficulty and had already identified a few (or even one) preferred alternative(s). Typological classification of individuals based on their salient causes of career indecision facilitates intervention planning as well as prescreening clients for individual counseling or group interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).