The Impact of Study Abroad Experiences on Vocational Identity among College Students

Deciding upon a career choice is a fundamental task of early adulthood (Super, 1981). For some college students, this task may be uncomplicated and rather effortless, while other students may find that deciding upon a career path is a more challenging experience. The National Center for Education Statistics (2004) reported that 21.6% of U.S. undergraduate students are undecided about their college major. This percentage of undecided students is the largest among students, surpassing the percentage of students who have declared other academic majors (e.g. education, business). Supporting this finding, Gordon (2007) found that 75% of college students change their undergraduate major at least once, indicating that some college students experience difficulty declaring an academic major. Academic indecision is an important consideration in higher education because there are many negative outcomes of academic indecision. For example, Astin (1975) noted that indecision about major and college retention rates are significantly correlated, with those students who are more undecided dropping out of college at higher rates. More recently, Coll and Stewart (2008) found that higher levels of academic or career decidedness are positively related to retention for college students, while others (Lounsbury, Saudargas, & Gibson, 2004) found a negative relationship between career decidedness and intention to withdraw from college in an investigation involving 232 college freshmen.