The history, development, and empirical foundations of the Career Decision Scale (CDS; Osipow, Carney, Winer, Yanico, & Koschier, 1976; 1987) are reviewed and summarized. The major research findings using the instrument are examined, along with its various uses in program planning, practice with special populations, and theory. Issues related to the instrument's use with women and men are briefly discussed, as are the cross-cultural applications of the measure. Finally, the controversy regarding the factor structure of the scale is reviewed.
Chronically career-indecisive undergraduates have been described in the literature in terms that characterize high scorers on the Neuroticism scale of the Eysenck Personality Inventory. Three measures derived from the Career Decision Scale (CDS) (i.e., Indecision scale scores, Factor 1 scores, and Indecision and Certainty scale score percentiles) were investigated for their usefulness in identifying such students. Of the three CDS measures, the Indecision scale was found to be most strongly related to neuroticism. Exploratory analysis of the relationships between indecision and scores on the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire indicated that differences in indecision were associated with anxiety.
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