Instruction in career decision making and decision-making styles.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differential effectiveness of two distinct career decision-making interventions and decision-making styles on certainty of vocational choice and changes in vocational maturity. Students were randomly assigned to (a) an intuitive intervention, (b) a rational intervention, (c) attention-placebo, or (d) no-treatment control groups. Students were classified as having either a rational, intuitive, or dependent decision-making style, and styles distributed themselves evenly across the four groups. Results indicated that decision-making style contributed to vocational maturity and certainty of vocational choice, and both interventions resulted in increases on both dependent measures. Rational decision makers did best with the rational intervention, whereas intuitive decision makers did best with the intuitive interventions. Thus, both styles can be considered as effective. Dependent decision makers have an ineffective style, demonstrating decreases on both dependent measures in all groups.