Career Indecision

Ryan Jim Sy San Diego

PhD in Counselling Psychology

De La Salle University - Manila

Introduction
  In various researches career indecision was used to mean
problems related to an individual’s career development and
decision-making related to it.
  Literature distinguish people with indecisive trait from those
who are actually having problems with career indecisions.
  The former is a trait-personality problem that limits the
person to make necessary decisions while the latter are
individual’s developmental problems and are temporary in
nature.
Literature
  (Winer, 1992) reported that over 15 years career indecision
was viewed as a unidimensional and characterized by one
single indecision score.
  The author added that he wants to reassert the hypothesis of
Osipow (1986) that career indecision was best be explained
using types than single score.
  There are 2 statistics used to study the nature of career
indecision, the first is factor analysis and the second, cluster
analysis.
Statistics
  Cluster analysis was used to categorize and differentiate
participants.
  Cluster analysis is an analytic tool designed to identify
relatively homogenous groups of individuals on the basis of
scores from a set of complex, related variables (Fuqua,
1988).
  Type differences on career-related measures using
MANOVA.
  ANOVA and post hoc pair wise contrast to identify the
location of specific differences.
Description of Indecision Types
  Type 1  indecision comprised 39.7% of the entire sample
(n= 75). Individuals in this group possessed the greatest
degree of career certainty and reported lower levels of career
indecisions, fairly flat profile, tentatively decided and
confident type of individual, having identified several career
alternatives. These individuals were in the process of
formalizing plans to attain their objectives. Labelled as the
tentatively decided – crystallizing preferences.
Adolescents in this indecision type were matured in their
attitudes toward career and cognitive skills of self appraisal
and knowledge about the world of work.
  Type 2  comprised the 38.1% of the sample (n=72) and
represented a considerable level of indecision. Participants
did not have a good idea of their career interests, they had
initiated broad exploration of possible career options and had
identified several tentative career fields of equal interest,
these interest were very fragile in terms of commitment and
certainty. Individuals expressed a strong need for
occupational information, reinforcement, and support. This
stage was labelled transitional indecision to reflect that
individuals had begun the process of career exploration but
were not firmly established in this stage.
  Type 3  comprised 22.2% of the participants (n = 42)
represented the most career indecisive group of adolescents.
Individuals in this group, named chronic indecision-impaired
development. Respondents indicated both concern and
discouragement at their inability to identify career interests
and viable career options. It appears that this situation is
exacerbated by a lack of information about personal interests
and abilities and careers. Difficulty in the decision-making
process has caused these students to put off making a
decision. They put off the desire to avoid anxiety associated
with making a choice by getting advices what to do, they have
immature career attitude. This type is labelled chronic
indecision-impaired development.
Discussion

Tentatively decided-crystallizing preferences

Transitional Indecision

Chronic Indecision/Impaired development

  Rojewski (1994) shed light to the multidimentionality of
career indecision. The cluster solution supported the 3 types
of career indecision.
  This three types seemed to be applicable to young
adolescents from rural areas who are in the early stages of
career exploration, as well as to older adolescents.
  Results also showed that gender, race, and disadvantage status
are not significant factor in determining indecision types.
END
  Thank You!