Date of Award

Summer 8-1-1984

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Department Not Listed

First Advisor

John C. Jessell

Second Advisor

Lawrence Beymer

Third Advisor

Reece Chaney

Abstract

This study investigated the comparative effectiveness of a career development course and small-group career counseling in facilitating career decidedness and career maturity. Both treatments were designed to resemble typical treatments for their respective types. The career course treatment consisted of approximately 54 students who met for three class sessions per week for one full semester. The course emphasized traditional instruction and teaching methods including lectures, readings, tests, and written assignments. The small-group treatment included four groups. Each group consisted of approximately 12 students and one leader. The groups met for 12 one-hour sessions during the first half of one semester. The groups emphasized participation and personal interaction related to several career development topics. The study used a pretest-treatment-posttest research design. The sample consisted of students enrolled in Counseling 231--Career and Life Planning at Indiana State University. Participating students were pretested with the Career Decision Scale (Osipow, Carney and Barak, 1976) and the Career Maturity Inventory-Attitude Scale (Crites, 1973) on the first class day. Students were then randomly assigned to either the career course treatment or the small-group career counseling treatment. At the conclusion of each treatment, the students were posttested with the same instruments. iv To compare the effectiveness of the ·two treatments on the two dependent variables, a 2x2 repeated measures analysis of variance was used. Two null hypotheses stated that there would be no significant difference between the two treatments in their ability to facilitate career decidedness and career maturity. The results upheld both hypotheses. The investigator concludes that there was no significant difference between the two treatments in their facilitation of career decidedness and career maturity. Both treatments resulted in change in the predicted direction. It was recommended that future research examine the two treatments, controlling for length of treatment and hours of treatment and including additional career development and client variables, a formal cost-effectiveness evaluation, and a no-treatment control group.

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