Decisão de carreira na transição da universidade para o mercado de trabalho: validação de instrumento de medida

Abstract

Cava, J. M. (2012). Career decision making in the university-to-work transition: validation of measurement instrument. 128 f. Thesis (Master s Degree) – University of Sao Paulo at Ribeirao Preto, Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters from Ribeirao Preto, University of Sao Paulo. Career decisions play a key role in the life of an individual and it is one of the most studied and worked construct in Vocational Psychology. However, the brazilian educational system at all levels, rarely supports students in their career education, development and decision. There is only a few initiatives in the higher education institutions that aim to intervene in issues and problems relating to the career development of students. Aiming to increase the knowledge about the career decision of brazilians college students and provide a tool for this purpose, this study had as objective, analyze the psychometric properties of the adaptation and validation of the Brazilian version of Career Decision Making Difficulties Questionnaire (CDDQ) authored by Gati et al. To achieve this objective the data were collected at two different moments, attended by 511 academics from public and private institutions, divided into two samples being the first one to semantic validation and the second one for the statistical validation. For semantic validation were made the translation, retranslation, item analysis and experimental testing. The results indicated that the instrument needs modifications in one of the items (item 30). For statistical validation, factor analyzes and reliability tests were performed in order to verify the structure of the instrument according to the career decision-making difficulties proposed by Gati, Krausz, and Osipow (1996). The original instrument has 34 items divided into three factors. The factor 1 (12 items) refers to difficulties related to lack of information, the factor 2 (12 items) includes difficulties associated with Inconsistent Information and factor 3 (10 items) includes difficulties related to readiness. The results confirmed partially the factor structure and indicated good reliability of the instrument CDDQ (α = 0.92). The principal axis factor analysis (PAF) and internal consistency of the dimensions of CDDQ34 indicate a three-factor solution (Readiness α = 0.58, Lack of Information α = 0.92, Inconsistent Information α = 0.86). The factor that relates to a lack of information is now composed of 18 items, the factor inconsistent information by 9 items, and the factor Readiness by 4 items. The analyses showed that the factor readiness has lower reliability confirming the findings of international literature, and remaining only four items of the 10 proposed in the original, so should be better analyzed for their use. Finally, the CDDQ proved to be a promising tool to assess career decision making difficults of college students, but needs further adaptations of their items, especially on the scale Readiness.