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Effects of a Career Course on Chinese High School Students' Career Decision‐Making Readiness
Author(s) -
Gu Xueying,
Tang Mei,
Chen Shi,
Montgomery Meredith L. T.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
the career development quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.846
H-Index - 53
eISSN - 2161-0045
pISSN - 0889-4019
DOI - 10.1002/cdq.12233
Subject(s) - psychology , intervention (counseling) , psychological intervention , cognitive information processing , career counseling , career development , self efficacy , medical education , career portfolio , applied psychology , social psychology , medicine , psychiatry
Career decision‐making is a critical task for high school students, yet little is known about how career interventions affect their decision‐making skills and self‐efficacy. We investigated the outcome of a career intervention in a Chinese high school setting to determine whether it would reduce the difficulties students faced in making a career decision and elevate their self‐efficacy in career exploration. A career intervention course was delivered to 413 high school students (228 female, 185 male) who completed a demographic questionnaire, the Major Decision‐Making Self‐Efficacy Scale (Peng & Long, 2003), and the Career Decision‐Making Difficulties Questionnaire–Chinese Version (Shen, 2005) before and after the intervention. Results indicated that the intervention had a positive impact on reducing students' difficulties making career decisions but had mixed results on career self‐efficacy. Proactive, systematic, multilevel, and structured interventions over longer periods of time would likely help youth develop their career decision‐making skills.