A six-item measure of global satisfaction with one's major, the Academic Major Satisfaction Scale (AMSS), was developed and validated. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses suggested a unidimensional structure. The measure had high internal consistency and distinguished between students who remained in their majors versus those who changed majors during 1- and 2-year periods. AMSS scores were positively associated with career decision self-efficacy and negatively associated with career choice anxiety and generalized indecisiveness. AMSS scores were also associated with indices of socially desirable responding, but social desirability did not account for the relationships between major satisfaction and the career decision-making variables. Implications for theory and ideas for using the AMSS in research and practice are presented.

This article celebrates the 50th anniversary of the introduction of John L. Holland's (1959) theory of vocational personalities and work environments by describing the theory's development and evolution, its instrumentation, and its current status. Hallmarks of Holland's theory are its empirical testability and its user-friendliness. By constructing measures for operationalizing the theory's constructs, Holland and his colleagues helped ensure that the theory could be implemented in practice on a widespread basis. Empirical data offer considerable support for the existence of Holland's RIASEC types and their ordering among persons and environments. Although Holland's congruence hypotheses have received empirical support, congruence appears to have modest predictive power. Mixed support exists for Holland's hypotheses involving the secondary constructs of differentiation, consistency, and vocational identity. Evidence of the continued impact of Holland's theory on the field of counseling psychology, particularly in the area of interest assessment, can be seen from its frequent implementation in practice and its use by scholars. Ideas for future research and practice using Holland's theory are suggested.

This study investigated a model of predictors of higher level career aspirations among 2 groups of women: students in mathematics, physical science, and engineering majors and students in biological science majors. On the basis of social-cognitive theory, it was hypothesized that ability, self-efficacy, positivity of role model influence, and role conflict would influence the higher level career aspirations of these women. Data obtained from a mail survey of 546 students revealed that the hypothesized model provided a good overall fit to the data. In contrast to the women in math, physical science, and engineering majors, the relationships between ability and self-efficacy and between positivity of role-model influence and self-efficacy were significantly lower in magnitude for women in the biological sciences group. These findings suggest ideas for interventions designed to increase the number of women aspiring to top positions within nontraditional careers.

Factors related to persistence in engineering, particularly for women, were examined in 278 upper level undergraduate women and men who, as entering students, enrolled in the college of engineering at a large midwestem university. An overall model of persistence was created by integrating constructs derived from a number of theories relevant to women's career behavior, including self-efficacy theory, expectancy-valence theory, interest congruence theory, and influences on women's career development. Hierarchical logistic regression revealed that ability, self-efficacy, support-barriers, and interest congruence each added significantly to the model predicting persistence, which correctly identified 92.6% of persisters and 623% of nonpersisters. Gender and expectancy-valence variables were not significant predictors, nor were any of the 2-way interactions with gender. Implications for future research and interventions are discussed.Women's career development has received increasing attention since the 1940s when women began entering the workforce in significant numbers. Although they currently make up over half the employees in the entire U.S. workforce (U.S. Department of Labor, 1993), women are drastically underrepresented in mathematics, the physical sciences, and engineering (Betz, 1994; U.S. Department of Labor, 1994). In 1992, for instance, only 9% of engineers, 13% of physicists and astronomers, and 11% of geologists were women (National Science Board, 1993).Given projected shortfalls of engineers, mathematicians, and scientists (American Association of University Women, 1991;Brush, 1991; National Research Council, 1991), the small numbers of women in these fields may have negative consequences for the future workforce. Women are needed not only to fill vacant positions but also to bring new questions, ideas, and perspectives to these fields and to increase the likelihood that the United States will remain competitive in technological development well into the next century (Wilson, 1992). In addition, increasing women's numbers in the sciences, mathematics, and engineering would benefit individual women, who would be that much less restricted to a range of lower status and lower paying "pink collar" occupations (Betz, 1994;Betz & Fitzgerald, 1987). In fact, engineering has been identified as among the top five most lucrative potential occupations for women (U.S. Department of Labor, 1990).

This article describes four studies that addressed the development and validation of an instrument that assesses the degree and type of role model influences on students' academic and vocational decisions. Factor analyses of the Influence of Others on Academic and Career Decisions Scale (IOACDS) yielded two factors that measure Support/Guidance and Inspiration/Modeling. Test-retest reliability and internal consistency estimates across studies were high. The Support/Guidance and Inspiration/Modeling subscales correlated in expected directions with measures of general social support, occupational information, career indecision, and career certainty, and they were not significantly related to a measure of social desirability. Only the Inspiration/Modeling subscale was significantly related to a measure of vocational identity. Suggestions are made for using the IOACDS in research and practice.

Social-cognitive career theory (R. W. Lent, S. D. Brown, & G. Hackett, 1994) postulates that changes in self-efficacy precede changes in interests, but the cross-sectional nature of most research has precluded the examination of temporal precedence in the relation between these variables. The authors assessed college students' career interests and self-efficacy at 3 separate times over the course of an academic year and examined the temporal nature of the relationship using a cross-lagged panel design. Structural equation modeling with observed variables generally revealed a reciprocal relationship between the 2 constructs over time, but the temporal precedence was inconsistent across time periods. The authors discuss these results in the context of A. Bandura's (1986) self-efficacy theory and provide recommendations for theory refinement and career counseling practice.

Relationships among the Big Five personality factors (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), career interests, and career self-efficacy (using Holland’s realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional types for both of the latter) were examined. Among a sample of 147 college students, self-efficacy mediated four out of five personality-interest relationships that have been found to be robust across a number of other samples. The findings generally support social cognitive career theory’s model of interest development and have implications for career counselors who are working to help clients understand their interest assessment results.

Career interests and self-efficacy (using J. L. Holland's realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional types for both) and the big five personality dimensions (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) were used to predict college students' career exploration behaviors approximately 18 months later. Among 113 college students, none of the predictors was associated with subsequent environmental exploration. However, after controlling for gender and year in school, five of six interest types, one self-efficacy type, and two personality dimensions were associated with subsequent self-exploration. Whereas realistic, artistic, and conventional interests; artistic self-efficacy; and openness were positively associated with self-exploration, investigative and enterprising interests and extraversion were negatively associated with such exploration. Implications for theory, research, and intervention are presented.