Use of the Self-Directed Search with Native American high school students.

Abstract

This study examined the appropriateness of using the Self-Directed Search (SDS) with Native American Indian high school students. Inventory scores between two different Indian tribes were compared, and then comparisons were made with national normative data. The Native American students differed among themselves on 4 of the 12 scale comparisons, and there were 6 differences on the 24 scale comparisons with the normative groups. The Indian samples showed higher intercorrelational coefficients among the SDS scales than the normative groups. The Indian high school students were also more inconsistent in their SDS codes and different in the distribution of their highpoint codes. It was concluded that the SDS may be an inappropriate instrument for use with these Native American high school students unless local norms are also considered.In increasing numbers Native American youth are remaining in high school and are planning to attend postsecondary and higher educational institutions. Chavers (1982) has called this movement into higher education an "explosion" and noted that the number of Indians attending college has increased from only about 1,400 in 1963 to 30,000 in 197830,000 in . Havighurst (1981 on the same theme, wrote that Indian youth are becoming a part of the economic mainstream by becoming more educated and trained to meet the demands of the labor market. Yet Wilson (1982) found that a primary factor contributing to their difficulties in succeeding in higher education is lack of educational and career planning.Despite the increasing numbers of Native Americans planning to broaden their career options, little is known about their inventoried vocational interest profiles. Only a few studies have addressed this topic and they have produced mixed results. Anadon (1977) and Scott and Anadon (1980) found nonsubstantial differences on the American College Testing Program Examination (ACT) Interest Inventory between college-bound Native Americans and Caucasians. However, Epperson and Hammond (1981) criticized the Anadon sample as possibly too elitist and cautioned about making generalizations to other Indians. In turn they presented their own study with 9th-grade Zuni Indian students. They found such large differences on the scales of the Kuder General Interest Survey, Form E, between Requests for reprints should be sent to

Vocational Skills and Outcomes Among Native American Adolescents: A Test of the Integrative Contextual Model of Career Development

“…Career exploration, personenvironment fit, and goal-setting skills can be taught through providing opportunities for Native American young people to understand their own goals, interests, personalities, and talents and to gather information about the world of work through computer-assisted and print materials. We recommend that counselors use instruments that have been validated on Native American populations, such as the Self-Directed Search (SDS; Gade, Fuqua, & Hurlburt, 1984). This instrument can be particularly effective in that it allows young people to explore their interests in specific activities, their competencies, their occupational preferences, and their self-estimated abilities across the six Holland themes.…”

Personal Globe Inventory: Measurement of the Spherical Model of Interests and Competence Beliefs

“…They could reflect differences in the environments of different ethnic groups. Some examples of this view are represented by the literature on barriers to career exploration and decision making (McWhirter, 1997;Swanson & Tokar, 1991a,b) and on the lack of role models (Gade, Fuqua, & Hurlburt, 1984;Martin, 1995). Another view is that such mean differences should not exist and that their presence signals a biased instrument (e.g., Carter & Swanson, 1990).…”

Correspondence of interests and abilities with occupational choice.

“…The literature on the occupational choice process has demonstrated that a narrower range of occupations are considered among ethnicracial minority groups (Gottfredson, 1978;Leung, Ivey, & Suzuki, 1994), and some prominent researchers have documented that some of this narrowing can occur as a result of perceptions of barriers in choice options (McWhirter, 1997;Swanson & Tokar, 1991a, 1991b or a lack of models (Gade, Fuqua, & Hurlburt, 1984;Martin, 1995). If this narrowing is true, then ethnic minorThis document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.…”