Self-Efficacy in Career Planning: A New Approach to Career Exploration
Keywords:
Perceived career self-efficacy; Career skills; Item-analysis methods; Convergent validity; Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Self-efficacy, perceived career self-efficacy, career skills, item-analysis methods, concurrent validityAbstract
Through two consecutive studies we attempted to explore
the beliefs of personal efficacy in respect to one‘s career and in relation
to the continuously evolving patterns in career planning as these
issues seem to have consequences to theory and research of career
counselling as well as to the use of psychometric tools. We aimed at
developing a research framework for assessing career self-efficacy for
use in counselling services. In Study 1, a model describing six
theoretically driven beliefs was psychometrically tested, arriving at a
21-item Perceived Self-Efficacy in Career Scale (PSECS); in this study,
mainly item analysis and exploratory factor analysis methods were
applied to Greek adults' data (N=126). In Study 2 we subjected the
PSECS to confirmatory analysis testing on Greek high-school students'
data (N=276). All analyses supported four dimensions, namely Career
Management, Career Skills, Flexibility at Work, and Creativity at
Work. The PSECS may offer an additional perspective for counselling
about the way individuals evaluate their skills in order to effectively
manage related career issues. Moreover, the scale may theoretically
contribute and aid research in career counselling with respect to how
people plan and adjust their careers within a changing economic
landscape.
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