Career decision making difficulties are one of the pivotal concerns of the students as well as the educational counsellors. Decision making is effected by the cognitive styles. The present study aimed to investigate the gender difference in cognitive style and career decision making difficulties of college students. For this purpose, students (N=541) including both female (N=236) and male (N=305) from twelve different colleges of Rawalpindi and Islamabad were approached, and they filled the Cognitive Style Indicator (Cools & Van den Broeck, 2007) and Career Decision-making Difficulties Questionnaire (Gati & Saka, 2001). The results of present study revealed that male students scored significantly high as compared to female students on Planning, subscale of cognitive style. Moreover, female students scored significantly high as compared to male students on Readiness, sub-scale of career decision-making difficulties questionnaire and male students scored significantly high as compared to female students on Inconsistent information, sub-scale of career decision-making difficulties questionnaire. This indicates that female students have significantly less difficulties as compared to male students on inconsistent information, this finding is unique in Pakistani context, as previous researches conducted in Pakistan reports that male students have less career decision making difficulties as compared to female students.

Career decision making difficulties are one of the pivotal concerns of the students as well as the educational counsellors. Decision making is effected by the cognitive styles. The present study aimed to investigate the gender difference in cognitive style and career decision making difficulties of college students. For this purpose, students (N=541) including both female (N=236) and male (N=305) from twelve different colleges of Rawalpindi and Islamabad were approached, and they filled the Cognitive Style Indicator (Cools & Van den Broeck, 2007) and Career Decision-making Difficulties Questionnaire (Gati & Saka, 2001). The results of present study revealed that male students scored significantly high as compared to female students on Planning, subscale of cognitive style. Moreover, female students scored significantly high as compared to male students on Readiness, sub-scale of career decision-making difficulties questionnaire and male students scored significantly high as compared to female students on Inconsistent information, sub-scale of career decision-making difficulties questionnaire. This indicates that female students have significantly less difficulties as compared to male students on inconsistent information, this finding is unique in Pakistani context, as previous researches conducted in Pakistan reports that male students have less career decision making difficulties as compared to female students.