To improve vocational psychology research, researchers should reconsider the meaning of career, adopt longitudinal designs for research on career development, and concentrate first on developmental processes and then on the context of careers. (SK)

Reviews 1988 literature on career development and counseling. Addresses career development theories and their application, career intervention, career exploration motives and constraints, and problems in career decision making. Emphasizes conceptual contributions offering new perspectives on career choice and development, research reports stating…

Reviews volumes 23-42 of "Career Development Quarterly," classifying 791 articles into 14 substantive areas of career research and practice devised by Fitzgerald and Rounds. Life-span perspectives on career development and career development interventions were noted as principle areas of research activity and publication. (Author/CRR)

The critical incidents technique was used with 50 workers successfully coping with career establishment. The workers identified behaviors used to cope with six tasks: organizational adaptation, position performance, work habits/attitudes, coworker relations, advancement, and career choice/plans. Responses were organized into patterns of coping…

Notes that Super's work to linguistically explicate and operationally define career development and its central processes has strongly influenced how counselors comprehend and guide their clients' vocational behavior. Explains how Super conceptualized career development in terms of life stages and developmental tasks, and how he proposed that…

Examined Career Decision Scale (CDS) as type indicator, using cluster analysis to group 368 college students on basis of responses to CDS. A five-cluster solution seemed to indicate the general decisional task being faced and nine-cluster solution suggested specific problem being encountered. Results were interpreted with regard to career…

Westbrook (1983) challenged the validity of the construct "career maturity" because measures such as the Career Maturity Inventory Attitude Scale (Crites, 1973) correlate to measures of mental ability. Rather than interpreting this association as evincing lack of discriminant validity, the association should be interpreted as supporting…

Career development specialists have not usually participated in public policy about work and workers. This paper examines how, as a community of technical experts, they can encourage policymakers to use values, theory, and research findings to assess the impact of current practices and to generate new policies. Career development specialists can…

The Career Maturity Inventory was revised in 1995 using previously unpublished longitudinal data for item selection. The new inventory has 25 attitude and 25 competence items, each yielding a score that measures degree of career maturity of conative and cognitive variables, respectively. (SK)

Demonstrates the use of Adlerian vocational psychology to conceive the career pattern described by the Publican in an article in this issue, to relate it to his vocational behavior, and select counseling topics that could aid his career development. Describes Adler's psychology as offering a process theory of vocational behavior that comprehends…

Evaluates the Medical Career Development Inventory, a measure of career maturity, with student-physicians (N=160). Results indicated that it is possible to construct a measure of vocational development for a population of adults encountering a common set of vocational development tasks. (LLL)

Examines the origin and current status of lifespan, life-space theory and proposes one way in which to integrate its three segments. Discusses a functionalist strategy for theory construction and the outcomes and consequences of this strategy. Discusses future directions for theory development, such as career adaptability and planful attitudes.…

Compared employed adults' (N=136) career concerns to vocational development tasks in Super's model of maintenance career stage. Found results indicated adaptation not maturation propelled development. Results support posited renewal task which deals with midlife reassessment of career choice and commitment. (Author/CM)

Examined validity of Adult Career Concerns Inventory (ACCI) and Career Adjustment and Development Inventory (CADI) as measures of adult vocational development by comparing responses of 124 salespeople to inventories and to measures of work adjustment. CADI clearly seemed to measure vocational development; ACCI seemed to measure concern about…

A study of 239 college freshmen found that those who perceived themselves as effective, competent, and in control of their leisure time had a clearer picture of occupational goals, interests, and talents. Those more committed to their leisure role displayed greater competence in career decision making and exploration. (SK)