Abstract
Many universities offer career exploration courses designed to assist students in making effective career choices; however, it remains unclear whether pre-existing resources have a significant influence on students’ ability to benefit. The purpose of this study was (a) to measure the efficacy of a career exploration course at an Appalachian institution in improving college and career decision self-efficacy and (b) to determine if the following pre-existing resources, academic readiness, academic achievement, and familial financial resources, were significant predictors of post-test college and career decision self-efficacy scores. Participants were 127 traditionally-aged, undergraduate students at a private, Appalachian university enrolled in a 15-week career exploration course. Paired samples t-tests revealed a significant positive change from pre to post-test for college and career decision self-efficacy; however, hierarchical linear regression analyses revealed no significant influence of the pre-existing resources on post-test scores for either construct.
Highlights
Many universities offer career exploration courses designed to assist students in making effective career choices; it remains unclear whether pre-existing resources have a significant influence on students’ ability to benefit
Research has consistently demonstrated the effectiveness of face to face career interventions such as career exploration courses in improving a variety of outcome variables including career indecision (Peng, 2001), college self-efficacy (Hsieh, Sullivan, & Guerra, 2007), and career decision self-efficacy (Bollman, 2009; Komarraju, Swanson, & Nadler, 2014); the influence of pre-existing resources on students’ ability to benefit from career exploration interventions remains unclear
Self-reported socio-economic status (SES) might be a predictor of response to some types of related intervention (Quon & McGrath, 2015), little is known about the influence of variables common in Appalachian contexts such as lack of academic readiness, lack of academic achievement, and lack of familial financial resources on the effectiveness of coursebased career interventions
Summary
Many universities offer career exploration courses designed to assist students in making effective career choices; it remains unclear whether pre-existing resources have a significant influence on students’ ability to benefit. Because Appalachian populations typically face issues associated with rural geography, decreased access to resources, and first generation status and because the career development of Appalachian students might be significantly influenced by these social and environmental factors (Ali & McWhirter, 2006; Ali & Saunders, 2006, 2009; Kelly, 2016), it follows that the influence of these challenges on students’ ability to benefit from intervention should be studied
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