Tracking Adult Career Development

Abstract

The Adult Career Concerns Inventory (ACCI) was designed to measure career planning and career adjustment in four stages of career development: exploration, establishment, maintenance and disengagement. In this study 288 employees, aged between 25 and 55 completed the ACCI. A factor analysis found that the items in five of the six subscales of the establishment and maintenance scales loaded together. Eight other items, which loaded together, could be interpreted to represent becoming established in a job or workplace. Two previous factor analyses testing a four factor model gave conflicting results, and the discrepancy between the studies is discussed. That adults move through stages in their careers is not questioned. Research areas that remain open for investigation include the number of stages in mid-career and the measurable constructs in those stages, the relationships between stages of career development and other career variables and the empirical establishment of the sequence of the stages.