Date of Award
1-30-2001
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Counseling Psychology & Community Services
First Advisor
Sue Jacobs
Abstract
Understanding the factors of vocational choice is an important component of career counseling. It is hypothesized that difficulties in choice are related to: (a) one's knowledge of occupations, (b) one's knowledge of self, and (c) the method one uses to match a chosen occupation to oneself One indicator of difficulties in occupational choice would be inconsistency in preference across items. Response inconsistency was measured using a paired comparison task. Occupational knowledge, self-knowledge, and decisiveness were measured using corresponding sub scales from the Career Factors Inventory. The participants were 102 undergraduate students at Utah State University who were recruited by the researcher during class presentations. No significant relationships were found between response inconsistency and the preceding factors of vocational choice. Similarly, gender was not related to levels of response inconsistency. Multidimensional unfolding was used to map the structure of occupational preference derived from participants' responses. Results from an external analysis using multiple regression found support that self knowledge for females and males and occupational knowledge for males explains approximately ten percent of the variance associated with participants' location on the derived occupational preference map.
Recommended Citation
Randall, Marque Eugene, "The structure of occupational preference: An examination of occupational knowledge, self knowledge, indecisiveness, and response inconsistency." (2001). Theses and Dissertations. 7827.
https://commons.und.edu/theses/7827