A general theoretical taxonomy of career decision-making difficulties, based on decision theory, has been developed. To examine the proposed taxonomy empirically, a questionnaire was constructed in which the various possible difficulties in the theoretical model were represented by respective statements. The questionnaire was administered to a sample of 259 young Israeli adults who were at the beginning of their career decision-making process and to an American sample of 304 university students. The observed relations among the 10 scales, which represent the 10 theoretical categories of difficulties, and those among the items within 2 selected categories, were similar in the 2 samples and compatible with the expected relations derived from the theoretical model. The implications for career counseling and research are discussed.

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The specialty of counseling psychology has come under scrutiny as a result of recent preoccupation with licensing, credentialing, and third-party payments. A lack of clarity concerning the nature of the specialization appears to be shared by psychology in general counseling psychology in particular, and also the general public. In the present study an occupational analysis of counseling psychology was conducted to determine what counseling psychologists actually do, how they feel about it, and how (if at all) the field is changing. The results suggest that counseling psychologists are strongly practice oriented and appear to see themselves as engaged in psychotherapy and traditionally "clinical" activities with a reduced emphasis on vocational academic, and research-focused behaviors. This finding is particularly true of the younger respondents. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the counseling-clinical distinction and the scientist-practitioner model.

In order to examine the construct and concurrent validity of the Career Decision-making Difficulties Questionnaire (CDDQ), responses of 403 university students (76% freshmen) to this questionnaire as well as to the Career Decision Scale (CDS) and the Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Scale (CDMSES) were analyzed. As hypothesized, the correlation between the CDDQ and the CDS was positive (.77), and the correlations of these two questionnaires with the CDMSES were negative (-.50 and -.52, respectively). The structure of the 10 difficulty categories of the CDDQ replicated previous findings. In addition, undecided students had significantly higher CDDQ and CDS scores, and lower CDMSES scores than decided students. The implications of the findings for the assessment of difficulties associated with career decision making in counseling and research are discussed.