Almost from its inception Kelly's (1955) personal construct psychology has sustained a research literature directed at understanding vocational processes. This research has concentrated on the idiographic matrix of meanings, or constructs, that individuals bring to bear in making vocational decisions and wending their way through the world of work. Early work concentrated on adapting the theory's methods to eliciting personally meaningful vocational constructs, and using them in directed processes of exploration tailored to the individual's unique world view (Dolliver, 1966). Regarded as bi-polar bases of distinction among relevant aspects of experience, vocational constructs (e.g., outdoor work vs. desk job; high salary vs. low salary) provide a template or channel through which vocational events are viewed. These dimensions help organize and systematize the vocational events with which an individual is confronted, lending order and meaning to the world of work. Importantly, Kelly (1955) assumed that individuals differed not only in the particular content of the constructs that they brought to bear in making vocational judgments, but also in the overall organization, or structure of that matrix of meaning he referred to as the &dquo;vocational construct system&dquo; (p. 740).Considerable work has addressed the relationship between aspects of this vocational structure and a wide variety of career variables (see at Bibliothekssystem der Universitaet

Recent work has suggested that philosophical commitments play a part in directing preferences for different types of counseling, and in this article the authors extend that work with a series of four studies. Study 1 provides partial support for the relationship between epistemic commitments (rational, empirical, or metaphorical) and preferences for particular types of counseling (behavioral, rational emotive, constructivist). Studies 2 and 3 extend these findings by noting differences in how individuals gather, process, and respond to self‐relevant feedback as a result of epistemic style. Finally, Study 4 provides tentative support for the possibility that counselor trainees gravitate toward preferring counseling theories that are consistent with their own epistemic orientations. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.

Recent studies of vocational structure have demonstrated that experimentally provided vocational constructs are used in less complex, less differentiated ways than are subjects' personally elicited construct dimensions. The possible reasons underlying these differences are addressed in this 2part study. Results of Study 1 supported significant differences between the use of elicited and provided constructs and ruled out one methodological artifact that may have accounted for these differences. Study 2 helped to isolate the personal meaningfulness of the elicited construct as an active agent that accounts for differences in the use of these vocational constructs. Findings of both studies document, for the first time, a means of increasing differentiation and converge to suggest the important role of personal meaning in vocational structure.

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Recent research in the area of children and death is reviewed in this article, focusing on the two broad domains of childrens' death concept development and children and bereavement. The kinds of psychometric instrumentation used in current projects within these areas is then reviewed. These instruments can be broadly classified as structured interview formats (standardized and unstandardized), paper and pencil formats (standardized and unstandardized), and phenomenographic methodology. The bulk of research in the field has relied upon structured interview formats. The Development of Death Concept Questionnaire and the Derry Death Concept Scale are the two standardized structured interview formats that are reviewed, along with a number of unstandardized structured interview formats. The Mourning Behavior Checklist and the Child Behavior Checklist are the two standardized paper and pencil formats that are reviewed, along with a number of unstandardized paper and pencil formats. A relatively new phenomenographic approach developed by Wenestam and Wass is also reviewed. This discussion is then used as a background for the secondary purpose of this article, which is to bring attention to the area of children and death anxiety as a new frontier for theoretical and psychometric investigation.