Basic Confidence predictors of career decision-making self-efficacy.

The extent to which Basic Confidence Scales predicted career

decision-making self-efficacy was studied in a sample of 627

undergraduate students. Six confidence variables accounted for 49% of

the variance in career decision-making self-efficacy. Leadership

confidence was the most important, but confidence in science,

mathematics, writing, using technology, and cultural sensitivity all

contributed significant incremental variance. There were some

differences as a function of race and gender, but leadership

confidence was the most significant predictor in all sub-groups.

Implications for educational and career counseling are discussed.

One of the most visible areas of research in career development and counseling today is applications of Bandura's (1977) self-efficacy theory to the understanding and treatment of problems in both personal/social and career development. In particular, there have now been hundreds of studies investigating the importance of self-efficacy (often referred to as confidence) to educational and career development with respect to career-related behaviors. Such behaviors have included mathematics self-efficacy (Lopez, Lent, Brown, & Gore, 1997), self-efficacy for occupational tasks taken from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (Rooney & Osipow, 1992), career decision-making self-efficacy (Luzzo, 1993; Taylor & Popma, 1990), and career search efficacy (Solberg, Good, Fischer, Brown, & Nord, 1995).

Because of its importance to career decision making and career interventions, career decision-making self-efficacy has received probably the most research attention relative to other domains of career behavior. Career decision-making self-efficacy was originally defined by Taylor and Betz (1983) as the individual's belief that he or she can successfully complete tasks necessary to making career decisions. Career decision-making self-efficacy has been measured using the task domains of accurate self-appraisal, gathering occupational information, goal selection, planning, and problem solving. Probably because of its centrality to successful educational and career outcomes, factors related to career decision-making self-efficacy and the design and evaluation of interventions have received extensive attention from researchers (Betz & Luzzo, 1996).

Research indicates that career decision-making self-efficacy is related to other indices of adaptive career decision making. For example, there is ample evidence that career decision-making self-efficacy is inversely related to career indecision (e.g., Bergeron & Romano, 1994; Betz, Klein, & Taylor, 1996; Taylor & Popma, 1990). Career decision-making self-efficacy has also been shown to be related to high versus low vocational identity (Robbins, 1985), more adaptive career beliefs (Luzzo & Day, 1999), fear of career commitment (Betz & Serling, 1993), and career exploratory behavior (Blustein, 1989). Peterson (1993a, 1993b) found that career decision-making self-efficacy was related to academic persistence versus dropout in underprepared college students and that it surpassed all other variables as a predictor of academic and social integration of college students. Other studies have suggested that career decision-making self-efficacy can be increased through verbal persuasion, one of Bandura's postulated four sources of efficacy information (Luzzo & Taylor, 1994), through attributional retraining (Luzzo, Funk, & Strang, 1996) and through a videotaped intervention designed to increase women's perceived career options (Foss & Slaney, 1986).

Bandura's (1977) formulations of self-efficacy theory include the postulate that increases in self-efficacy expectations relative to one domain should generalize, to some degree, to other domains. On the basis of this general statement, it would be possible to postulate statistically significant relationships among domain-specific measures of self-efficacy. Not surprisingly, then, scores on the Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale (CDMSE; Betz, Klein, & Taylor, 1996) have been found to be moderately related to other measures of self-efficacy. For example, Betz and Serling (1993) found statistically significant correlations of .53, .21, and .29 with the Verbal, Quantitative, and Aesthetic subscales of Osipow and Rooney's (Osipow, Temple, & Rooney, 1993; Rooney & Osipow, 1992) Task-Specific Occupational Self-Efficacy Scale (TSOSS) in a sample of 90 students. Betz and Klein (1996) reported correlations of .38, .37, and .26 between CDMSE scores and mathematics self-efficacy.

Given preliminary findings such as these, we postulated that career decision-making self-efficacy in college students may well be related to self-efficacy as it relates to the basic competencies required of the typical liberal arts education. Although we are not postulating causality, we suggest that there may be reciprocal influence of self-perceived academic competencies and career decision-making self-efficacy. Understanding the extent to which various educational competencies may be related to career decision-making self-efficacy could provide additional ideas for increasing career decision-making self-efficacy in college students through efforts to develop these educational competencies as well as directly targeted career self-efficacy interventions.

There are, for example, several academic areas considered essential for a general liberal arts education. The basic elements of the assessment of student achievement in general education include English, Mathematics, Science, and Social Science (Banta, 1992). Descriptions of a liberal arts education include the following components: "to use their own language effectively" and "to participate in advancing social consciousness" (cf. Pfnister, 1992, p. 1146). Other definitions of a liberal education include the concept of preparing the young person for the role of citizen and "free man" (Pfnister, 1992, p. 1147) or have emphasized the importance of leadership activities (Cress, Astin, Zimmerman-Oster, & Burkhardt, 2001; Sedlacek & Brooks, 1976). Comfort with using a computer has also been linked to positive outcomes in college students (Kuh & Hu, 2001; Lewis, Coursol, & Khan, 2001).

The present study was designed to evaluate the relationship of self-efficacy, or confidence, with respect to several domains considered essential to the goals of a general or liberal arts education to career decision-making self-efficacy. On the basis of previous research and scholarship, we selected for examination six domains representative of broad educational goals or emphases of a college education. These six basic confidence dimensions were Mathematics, Science, Using Technology, Writing, Leadership, and Cultural Sensitivity, the last of which was designed to reflect Pfnister's (1992) goal "to participate in advancing social consciousness" (p. 1146). We conducted regression analyses of the predictive efficacy of these competencies relative to career decision-making self-efficacy.

Method

Participants and Procedure

Participants were 627 undergraduates enrolled in introductory psychology courses at a large, midwestern university. Students received course credit for their participation. All experiments were posted on the psychology department's Research Experience Program Web site, allowing students to select from a variety of experiments.

All but 4 participants indicated their gender, and the resulting break-down was 346 (55.5%) women and 277 (44.5%) men. In racial/ethnic composition, 80% of respondents indicated they were Caucasian, 9% African American, 6% Asian American/Pacific Islander, 2% Latino(a)/Hispanic, 1% multiracial, and 1% Native American. Only the African American subgroup was deemed large enough (n = 54) to analyze separately. Eighty percent of participants indicated they were freshmen, 13% sophomores, 5% juniors, and 1.4% seniors.

Participants were tested in groups of 25 to 60 in classrooms on the campus. They were given both oral and written instructions for completing the measures. After completing the measures, students were given a handout describing the purpose of the study and providing a list of counseling referrals should their participation cause them any kind of distress.

Measures

Expanded Skills Confidence Inventory (ESCI). The ESCI (Betz et al., 2003) measures self-efficacy, or confidence, with respect to 17 basic dimensions of vocational activity that are parallel to the Basic Interest Scales of the Strong Interest Inventory (SII; Harmon, Hansen, Borgen, & Hammer, 1994). Although the current (1994) version of the SII contains 25 Basic Interest Scales, economy of use and interpretation, as well as substantive import, led to the decision to develop confidence scales for many, but not all, of the 1994 Basic Interest Scales. Decisions regarding which Basic Confidence Scales to develop were based on the degree to which a Basic Interest (confidence) dimension is basic and important to many, rather than to only a few, occupational groups (e.g., Public Speaking, Writing, Leadership). Other scales were developed to reflect current trends in the labor market. Thus, the scales Using Technology, Creative Production, Cultural Sensitivity, Project Management, and Teamwork represent either emphases of the increasingly high-tech labor market or emphases within organizations that reflect the trend toward greater focus on interpersonal cooperation and diversity. The focus of the present study was on six of the Basic Confidence Scales: Mathematics, Science, Writing, Using Technology, Leadership, and Cultural Sensitivity.