Testing the Validity of the Emotional and Personality-Related Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire in Turkish Culture

Abstract

The goal of this study was to examine the emotional and personality-related career decision-making difficulties of high school students in Turkish culture, using the model proposed by Saka and Gati. A sample of 523 high school students filled out the Turkish version of the Emotional and Personality-Related Aspects of Career Decision-Making Difficulties (EPCD) questionnaire. Cluster and confirmatory factor analyses supported the ternary classification system of the emotional and personality-related career decision-making difficulties model and questionnaire, thus providing evidence for the cross-cultural validity of the proposed model. Furthermore, the results demonstrated significant associations between making a decision and the emotional and personality career difficulties: students who were decided reported lower emotional and personality-related career difficulties than did undecided students. Generally, there were no differences in EPCD scores between boys and girls, and no effect of type of school and grade was observed.

The Structure and Measurement of Career Indecision: A Critical Review

“…Structural validity of the EPCD . The structural validity of the EPCD has been tested cross‐culturally, and there has been convergent evidence supporting the three‐factor structure (Hou et al, 2015; Jin et al, 2015; Oztemel, 2013; Saka & Gati, 2007; Saka et al, 2008). Although research showed that two or three items loaded on the self‐concept and identity domains of the EPCD might not apply to an East Asian context, the general taxonomy system of the EPCD still held after deleting those items (Hou et al, 2015; Jin et al, 2015).…”

“…For example, it was found that the EPCD was associated with emotional and personality‐related variables, career decision‐making self‐efficacy, and the CDS (Hou et al, 2015; Jin et al, 2015; Saka & Gati, 2007). It was also found that the EPCD showed differential scores for students with different help‐seeking intentions, decidedness, and self‐reported difficulties (Gati, Asulin‐Peretz, & Fisher, 2012; Oztemel, 2013; Saka & Gati, 2007). Longitudinally, the EPCD was found to successfully predict later decidedness and choice confidence (Gati et al, 2012; Saka et al, 2008).…”

“…The reviewed research on the cross‐cultural variation of career indecision has generally found that the CDDQ, EPCD, and CIP‐65 all have sound psychometric performance in terms of reliability and validity across Western and Eastern cultural contexts. Although there is structural consistency of the CDDQ (Gati, Osipow et al, 2000; Gati, Saka et al, 2000; Mau, 2001; Osipow & Gati, 1998; Tien, 2005; Xu et al, 2014) and EPCD (Hou et al, 2015; Jin et al, 2015; Oztemel, 2013; Saka & Gati, 2007; Saka et al, 2008) in the international context, there is notable structural variance of the CIP between Western and Eastern cultural contexts (Abrams et al, 2014; Roche et al, 2017). The divergent findings might result from the fact that the CDDQ and EPCD were developed based on universal decision theories, whereas the CIP was developed based on context‐specific data.…”

“…Reliability evidence for the EPCD has been documented in the findings of alpha coefficients ranging from .79 to .95, indicating good internal consistency for each of the three subscales (e.g., (Saka & Gati, 2007;Saka et al, 2008). Such a pattern has been demonstrated in multiple cultural contexts, such as Israel, the United States, China, Korea, and Turkey (Hou, Li, Liu, & Gati, 2015;Jin, Nam, Joo, & Yang, 2015;Oztemel, 2013). Hou et al (2015) additionally found an adequate test-retest reliability over a 2-week interval for the EPCD.…”

The Emotional and Personality-Related Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire—Validation of the Chinese Version

“…The structural validity of EPCD was also generally supported, although the uncrystallized identity difficulty category was located empirically under the self-concept and identity cluster in the Israeli sample in accordance with the theoretical model but was categorized into the anxiety cluster in the American sample. In another study, Oztemel (2013) tested the structure of EPCD with a sample of Turkish high school students. The exploratory cluster analysis showed a similar structure of EPCD-Turkish version with the hypothesized theoretical model by Saka et al (2008) with one difference: The difficulty category ''anxiety about the outcomes'' was included in the self-concept and identity instead of anxiety cluster.…”