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Journal ArticleDOI

A Process and Outcome Study Examining Career Indecision and Indecisiveness.

04 Mar 1995-Journal of Counseling and Development (Blackwell Publishing Ltd)-Vol. 73, Iss: 4, pp 426-437
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the counseling process with an undecided and indecisive college student to examine what specific events were the most significant in each session, counselor intentions in the “best” versus “worst” sessions, role of the working alliance with career clients, and differential counseling outcomes.
Abstract: Despite the abundance of research on undecided and indecisive students, there is a lack of literature on the actual change process of counseling these individuals. No published studies have applied advances in single-subject methodology to career research. This study uses both process and outcome measures to investigate the counseling process with an undecided and indecisive college student to examine (a) what specific events were the most significant in each session, (b) counselor intentions in the “best” versus “worst” sessions, (c) role of the working alliance with career clients, and (d) differential counseling outcomes. Participants were two female counselors, one male undecided student, and one male indecisive student. Results (a) support previous speculation about the differential utility of interventions for undecided and indecisive clients, (b) suggest that the relationship may be important to clients in career counseling, and (c) raise questions about previously assumed intervention strategies for career clients.
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TL;DR: Luyckx et al. as discussed by the authors extended the four-dimensional identity formation model with a fifth dimension, labeled ruminative (or maladaptive) exploration, which was added as a complement to two forms of reflective (or adaptive) exploration already included in the model.

649 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine potential reasons why career counseling process research has been infrequently conducted and provide 10 avenues from psychotherapy process research, and the limited pool of existing career counseling processes research, that hold promise for advancing a productive process-research agenda in career counseling.

146 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined how indecisiveness relates to adolescents' process of choosing a study in higher education, using a longitudinal design, and found that indecisiness was a risk factor for future levels of coping with career decisional tasks of broad and in-depth environmental exploration (amount of information and exploratory behavior), amount of self-information, decisional status, and commitment.
Abstract: This study examined how indecisiveness relates to adolescents' process of choosing a study in higher education, using a longitudinal design. A sample of 281 students participated at the beginning, middle, and end of Grade 12. Findings show that indecisiveness was a risk factor for future levels of coping with the career decisional tasks of broad and in-depth environmental exploration (amount of information and exploratory behavior), amount of self-information, decisional status, and commitment. However, indecisiveness did not relate to the degree of change in decisional tasks during Grade 12. Moreover, results suggest that the linkage of indecisiveness with the amount of in-depth environmental information, the amount of self-information, decisional status, and commitment was mediated by adolescents' career choice anxiety. Finally, stability data provided support for the conceptualization of indecisiveness as a trait.

139 citations


Cites background from "A Process and Outcome Study Examini..."

  • ...…clients have been described as suffering from a range of personal problems like high anxiety, low self-confidence, and dependency on other persons for a clear sense of self (Heppner & Hendricks, 1995; Salomone, 1982), features which are expected to have negative consequences for making a decision....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a study into the choice of physics in secondary education has been carried out, focusing on the predictive value of certain characteristics of the curriculum, the differences between schools and the stability of the choice variable.
Abstract: Against a background of disappointing percentages of students choosing exact and technical studies and the academic choice research tradition, a study into the choice of physics in secondary education has been carried out. It focuses on the predictive value of certain characteristics of the curriculum, the differences between schools and the stability of the choice variable. Two cohorts of students in a representative sample of schools filled in written questionnaires, four times in two years. The data were analysed in several ways that complemented each other, including multilevel analysis. The main predictor of the choice of physics in secondary education is perceived future relevance and no significant differences between schools exist. The choice variable is not stable. Many students feel uncertain about their choice of study and profession. Academic choice processes should be more connected with career choice processes. Certain characteristics of the physics curriculum can be expected to further the possibilities for students to experience physics and physics-like contents and problems as being personally meaningful and interesting.

124 citations


Cites background from "A Process and Outcome Study Examini..."

  • ...According to the fourth orientation, a growing number of adolescents have much trouble choosing a career path; they postpone decisions or are even indecisive (Heppner and Hendricks 1995)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a repeated measures MANOVA was used to assess 88 students' precourse and post-course self-efficacy for five tasks related to career decision-making.
Abstract: The current study hypothesized that undergraduates enrolled in a career explorations course would report significant gains in career decision-making self-efficacy and vocational identity during a semester. A repeated measures MANOVA was used to assess 88 students' precourse and postcourse self-efficacy for five tasks related to career decision making. Results revealed that students reported significantly more adaptive self-efficacy beliefs following the career course. Furthermore, a time by gender interaction indicated the course was especially effective for increasing women's judgments of efficacy for career planning and problem solving. Subsequent analyses indicated that students also reported a stronger sense of vocational identity following the course. Results from this study contribute to current research and practice by revealing how interventions may affect undergraduates' career-related beliefs.

122 citations


Cites background from "A Process and Outcome Study Examini..."

  • ...Other individuals who are generally able to easily make decisions may respond better to a short-term informational style of counseling (Heppner & Hendricks, 1995)....

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  • ...Within this population, Heppner and Hendricks (1995) found that some students respond better to a more personal counseling approach in which they feel free to examine both personality and contextual issues such as self-criticism and responsibility to the family....

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References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Bordin this article reviewed and elaborated the psychoanalytic concept of the working alliance and argued that various modes of psychotherapy can be meaningfully differentiated in terms of the kinds of working alliances embedded in them, and that the strength, rather than the kind of working alliance, will prove to be the major factor in change achieved through psychotherapy.
Abstract: The psychoanalytic concept of the working alliance is reviewed and elaborated. It is argued that various modes of psychotherapy can be meaningfully differentiated in terms of the kinds of working alliances embedded in them. Moreover, the strength, rather than the kind of working alliance, will prove to be the major factor in change achieved through psychotherapy. Strength of alliance will be a function of the goodness of fit of the respective personalities of patient and therapist to the demands of the working alliance. Past research bearing on these propositions and indicated future research are discussed. Extensions to changes sought in teaching and other group processes are briefly touched. Proliferation of psychotherapies has dominated the sixties and seventies. Thirty-six psychotherapies (Harper, 1959) had to be supplemented by an additional compilation (Harper, 1975). Unchecked, this trend would come perilously close to the solipsism, a psychotherapeutic method for each psychotherapist. Not unexpectedly, research in psychotherapy has suffered from an analogous lack of convergence, and with it a disappointing impotence about providing empirical tests of competing claims. As Donald Campbell (1976) suggests, given the wide prevalence of the need for psychotherapy, and the continuing ability of individuals or society to pay for it, the winnowing of this harvest of methods must come from research. Campbell (1976) speaks to the practitioner, exhorting him or her to engage in systematic follow-up. This essay addresses those prac1 An earlier version of this paper was given at the annual meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy, June, 1975. * Requests for reprints should be sent to Edward S. Bordin, Ph.D., University of Michigan Counseling Center, 1007 East Huron Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109. titioners who are also research workers, to call attention to a point of view that can encompass most, if not all, approaches to psychotherapy and can lead toward the needed convergence in research. There has been a promising rate of growth of research and research workers, with encouraging trends toward a coming together on basic issues: I aim to contribute to that movement. Moreover, because of the generalizability of my ideas to all change situations, I hope to stimulate research applications to teaching and to community change processes. 1 propose that the working alliance between the person who seeks change and the one who offers to be a change agent is one of the keys, if not the key, to the change process. The working alliance can be defined and elaborated in terms which make it universally applicable, and can be shown to be valuable for integrating knowledge—particularly for pointing to new research directions. As my initial statement suggests, a working alliance between a person seeking change and a change agent can occur in many places besides the locale of psychotherapy. The concept of the working alliance would seem to be applicable in the relation between student and teacher, between community action group and leader, and, with only slight extension, between child and parent. While I believe such extensions to be fruitful, they are beyond the scope of this paper. I shall confine myself to the therapeutic working alliance, making only brief inferences to extensions to other change enterprises.2 2 One might extend the idea of working alliances to nonchange situations. Although prisons, under reform ideology, have been set up as change situations, most observation suggests that staff and inmates typically arrive at a mutually agreed-upon alliance to get through their relationship with as little upset as possible.

4,314 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the quality of the working alliance (WA) was most predictive of treatment outcomes based on clients' assessments, less so of therapists' assessments and least predictive of observers' report, and a moderate but reliable association between good WA and positive therapy outcome was found.
Abstract: Results of 24 studies (based on 20 distinct data sets) relating the quality of the working alliance (WA) to therapy outcome were synthesized using meta-analytic procedures. A moderate but reliable association between good WA and positive therapy outcome was found. Overall, the quality of the WA was most predictive of treatment outcomes based on clients' assessments, less so of therapists' assessments, and least predictive of observers' report

2,642 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Working Alliance Inventory (WAI) as discussed by the authors was completed after the 1st psychotherapy session by 84 university counseling center clients and 15 therapists rating their work with 123 clients, and was used to assess therapists' work with their clients.
Abstract: The Working Alliance Inventory (WAI) was completed after the 1st psychotherapy session by 84 university counseling center clients and 15 therapists rating their work with 123 clients

1,457 citations