This study explored two aspects of the construct of serendipity. First, it explored the incidence of serendipitous events influencing career development as perceived by a sample of older adults. Second, it developed categories to describe the events that people reported as significant. The sample was comprised of 237 older adults. Participants responded to a brief questionnaire that asked if their careers were influenced by serendipitous events. Those participants who responded yes were asked to describe the serendipitous events.The results indicated that 63% of the men and 57% of the women felt that their careers were influenced by serendipitous events. Eleven serendipity categories were identified, based on the participants' descriptions of these events. David Campbell (1974) wrote, &dquo;unless you know what you want from life, you are not likely to stumble across it.&dquo; More recently, however, Susan Phillips (1994) suggested that many individuals do not seem to approach career decision making in a &dquo;rational&dquo;-systematic, comprehensive, and methodical-manner. Thus, they do not carefully gather information about themselves and occupational options, integrate the information, and evaluate it to make decisions. Individuals may gather some information, but they often use shortcuts. They may also use decision-making strategies that involve emotion and intuition rather than the information gathering and goal setting recommended by career decision-making experts (Hall, 1986).The concept of serendipity and its influence on career paths has been examined by theorists and researchers using various terms with a range of meanings-nonpredictable, chance, unplanned, happenstance, serendipitythat may have subtle definitional differences. Super et al. (1957) suggested, for example, that nonpredictable factors were possible determinants of The authors wish to thank Tawni Hoeglund and Jody Neuman for serving as expert judges.

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This study provides evidence of reliability and validity for the Leisure Interest Questionnaire (LIQ; J. C. Hansen, 1998). Undergraduate students completed the LIQ and Strong Interest Inventory (SII; E. K. Strong Jr., 1927) at Time 1 and the LIQ 5 weeks later. The internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the LIQ scales were calculated. Evidence of construct validity was inferred from (a) intercorrelations among the LIQ scales and (b) correlations between LIQ and SII. A second sample of undergraduates completed the LIQ and the Leisure Activities Blank (G. E. McKechnie, 1975) to provide evidence of criterion validity. An exploratory factor analysis and a multidimensional scaling analysis of the LIQ scales provided information about the structure of leisure interests.Editor's Note. Gail Hackett served as the action editor for this article.-JCH

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