An instrument was developed to assess the career search efficacy of individuals who are interested in finding careers or jobs, changing careers or jobs, or reentering the job market. Principal components analysis of the 35-item Career Search Efficacy Scale (CSES; Solberg, Good, & Nord, 1991) yielded four factors: (a) Job Exploration, (b) Interviewing, (c) Networking, and (d) Personal Exploration Efficacy. Internal consistency for the subscales ranged from .87 to .95 indicating very good internal consistency. Convergent and discriminant validity of the CSES was also assessed. A principle component analysis indicated that the CSES converged with indices of career self-efficacy and discriminated from personality measures (e.g., assertiveness, interpersonal skills, and instrumentality). Implications for future research and practice are discussed.
The nature of the relationship between 3 human agency indices (assertiveness, instrumentality, and interpersonal facility), career search self-efficacy, and 3 career indices (vocational identity, career decision needs, and career activities performed) is examined. Data from 426 college men and women were analyzed using hierarchical regression to assess whether career search self-efficacy was able to mediate the relationship between human agency and each career index. For all 3 career indices, the mediator hypothesis was supported. No support was found for human agency mediating the relationship between career search self-efficacy and the career indices, nor for human agency moderating the relationship between career search self-efficacy and career indices. Implications for conducting counseling intervention programs focusing on development of career search self-efficacy expectations are discussed.
theory provides a valuable foundation for understanding factors related to individuals' degree of success in performing activities necessary for obtaining an occupation and/or developing a career. Briefly, self-efficacy theory postulates that the probability of engaging in an activity is determined in part by the degree to which individuals believe they can effectively perform the behavior (Bandura, 1986). To date, research in career self-efficacy has focused primarily on the relationship between selfefficacy expectations and career choice and performance (
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