Development and validation of a new career maturity questionnaire for vocational high school students

Abstract

For vocational school students, career maturity is an important part of the curriculum. The evaluation of career maturity can be done using a questionnaire. The existing career maturity instruments of CMI and revised CMI show low internal consistency. This research aims to develop new instruments for measuring career maturity. The instrument consists of a 20-item Career Maturity Questionnaire and is constructed based on the theory of vocational career maturity. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to examine the measurement property of the new questionnaire. The results of the analysis show that the construct consists of three factors deriving from four factors of the vocational career maturity theory. Two factors are consistent with the vocational career maturity theory. The last factor is found to be the combination of career planning and self-concept. The Indonesian vocational career maturity comprises three factors (1) Career Planning and Self Concept, (2) Career Decision Making and (3) Career Exploration. The questionnaire contains sixteen items giving the required factor loadings. Further research can investigate the concurrent validity of the instrument. Keywords: career maturity, vocational school, exploratory factor analysis, development, validation;