Dysfunctional Career Decision-Making Beliefs: A Multidimensional Model and Measure

Abstract

Dysfunctional beliefs are among the most prevalent, severe difficulties many individuals face in the process of making career decisions. The goal of the present study was to develop and test a new multidimensional measure of Dysfunctional Career Decision-Making Beliefs ( DCB). The DCB questionnaire elicits individuals’ beliefs in five aspects of career decision-making: the role of chance or fate, the criticality of the decision, the role of significant others, the role of professional help, and perceived gender barriers. Study 1 used exploratory factor analysis and cluster analysis to test the psychometric properties and the five-factor structure of the DCB with a sample of 937 young adults deliberating about their future career. Study 2 used confirmatory factor analysis to validate the structure of the DCB with another sample of 1,251 young adults and analyzed the associations between individuals’ DCB Scale scores and career decision status to test its concurrent validity. The results supported the proposed multidimensional model of dysfunctional beliefs. Implications for future research and career counseling are discussed.

Testing the structure of the Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire across country, gender, age, and decision status

“…Several previous studies have reported a poor reliability estimate for this category (Gati et al, 1996(Gati et al, , 2000(Gati et al, , 2013Gati, Amir, & Landman, 2010;Sovet et al, 2015;Xu & Tracey, 2014). Hechtlinger, Levin, and Gati (2019) suggested that the low reliability of the dysfunctional beliefs score might be attributable to the heterogeneity of the Structure of Career Decision-Making Difficulties 22 items in this scale of the CDDQ. Indeed, for the Dysfunctional Career Decision-Making Beliefs questionnaire (DCB; Hechtlinger et al, 2019), which allows assessing five specific types of dysfunctional beliefs, the reliabilities of the scales were adequate (.72 to .83), considering that each scale includes three items.…”

“…Hechtlinger, Levin, and Gati (2019) suggested that the low reliability of the dysfunctional beliefs score might be attributable to the heterogeneity of the Structure of Career Decision-Making Difficulties 22 items in this scale of the CDDQ. Indeed, for the Dysfunctional Career Decision-Making Beliefs questionnaire (DCB; Hechtlinger et al, 2019), which allows assessing five specific types of dysfunctional beliefs, the reliabilities of the scales were adequate (.72 to .83), considering that each scale includes three items. However, the intercorrelations between the five scales were lower (.10-.28 and.15-.41, in two large samples), supporting the claim that having one dysfunctional belief is often not associated with having others, and thus that a total score for dysfunctional beliefs is likely have low reliability.…”

Analysis of the Relationship Between Psychological Well-Being and Decision Making in Adolescent Students

“…By the same token, some authors have applied the study of decision-making in adolescents to the vocational sphere, differentiating between males and females (Abidin et al, 2019;Hechtlinger et al, 2019;Kvasková and Almenara, 2019). In these studies, differences were found in the decision-making process variables by gender; the female sample obtained scores better than the male sample.…”

The Comparison Between Students Career Beliefs in E-Game and Traditional Game Community Member

“…If career beliefs are positive, someone will be more confident in achieving career goals (Krumboltz, 1994). Conversely, negative career beliefs produce doubt (Saunders, Peterson, Sampson Jr, & Reardon, 2000) and weak commitment (Hechtlinger et al, 2019). This is confirmed by the study of Saunders et al, (2000) who found that 61% of career doubts are influenced by negative career beliefs.…”