Work-Role Salience: Comparison of Students in Career-Directed and General Degree Courses

Watson, Mark; Allan, Marietjie M.

doi:10.2466/pr0.1989.64.3.699

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…However, Watson and Allan (1989) found that students enrolled for career-directed degrees were significantly higher in work role salience than those enrolled for general degree courses. Research on high school students has found white female and Afrikaans-speaking students significantly more work role salient than their male and Englishspeaking peers respectively (Watson & Stead, 1990).…”

Section: South African Research Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 81%

The career development of black and white South African university students

Watson¹,

Stead

Jager³

1995

Int J Adv Counselling

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Abstract. This study investigates the possible influence of gender and culture on the career maturity and study and work role salience of South African students. Responses to the Life Role Inventory and Career Development Questionnaire of 260 first-year university students (137 white, 123 black) were analyzed. Culture was found to have a significant effect on both career maturity and study and work role salience while gender had no significant effect. Results are related to previous findings from international and South African literature. Implications for counselling are discussed.Super holds that the maturing of an individual's career attitudes and knowledge can only occur within a life space where work has importance. Nevill and Super (1983) point out that successful counselling of students on a tertiary level is dependent on'knowledge of both students' readiness to make a career choice (i.e. their career maturity) as well as how important work is to such students. Thus readiness for career decision making is dependent on the importance work holds for an individual, that is there needs to be a motivation for a career and for study towards such a career. Without this motivation, the attitudes and information necessary to cope with the developmental task of career decision making becomes irrelevant to the individual (Super, 1983).Examining the importance of the student and worker roles as well as the level of career maturity of university students has relevance not only for developed countries but for a developing country such as South Africa. The high failure rate amongst white and particularly black university students may be due, in part, to low salience of the study and work roles and/or low career maturity. In addition, black students face the added disadvantage of an inferior level of education and a lack of counselling facilities. Counselling students for future careers appears inexact at best and irrelevant at worst when the sa'l]ence of fhe study and work roles and the developmental readiness of a student to deal with career decision making remains an unknown within the counselling process.

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Section: South African Research Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 81%

The career development of black and white South African university students

Watson¹,

Stead

Jager³

1995

Int J Adv Counselling

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“…They hypothesized that women are likely to exhibit greater levels of commitment to work than are men in order to meet the obligations imposed on them by various life roles. The idea that women are attaching increasing importance to the role of work in their lives was echoed by Watson and Allan (1989). and evidence that women in college may perceive significantly greater numbers of bamers to career development than men in college perceive has been provided by Luzzo (in press).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The degree to which an individual is committed to the role of work in her or his life, sometimes referred to as work-role or career salience in the literature (Greenhaus & Simon, 1976, 1977Stumpf & Lockhart, 1987;Taylor & Popma, 1990;Watson & Allan, 1989), is a concept that has only recently caught the attention of career counselors (Nevill & Super, 1988;Watson & Stead, 1990). Theoretically, commitment to work plays an important role in the career development process.…”

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confidence: 99%

An Analysis of Gender and Ethnic Differences in College Students' Commitment to Work

Luzzo

1994

Journal of Employment Couns

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“…Role salience research has been conducted on an international scale, resulting in a fairly diverse range of study participants. In addition to the United States, researchers have conducted studies in locations such as Canada (Yaremko & Lawson, 2007), England (Noor, 2004), Australia (Ravinder, 1987; Rodd, 1994), Portugal (Duarte, 1995; Ferreira-Marques, 1989), China (Aryee, 1999), Japan (Holloway, Suzuki, Yamamoto, & Mindnich, 2006), Zimbabwe (Mpofu, 2003), and South Africa (Watson & Allan, 1989; Watson & Stead, 1990; Watson, Stead, & De Jager, 1995). The worldwide interest in role salience could potentially be a result of the Work Importance Study (WIS), a project that consisted of psychologists-researchers in 14 countries who were interested in studying the importance of work.…”

Section: Existing Role Salience Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inspecting the Hierarchy of Life Roles

Greer

Egan

2012

Human Resource Development Review

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Role salience is a reflection of the importance and value that people attribute to the roles central to their lives and identities. One pivotal aspect of role salience is individual responsibilities to organizational roles. Role salience has meaningful implications for employees and organizations. Understanding and acknowledging the importance of holistic treatment of role salience has the potential to affect organizational policies, HRD practices, and, ultimately, employee learning and performance. In this study, findings from a systematic review of the role salience literature are reported. Following a search of four Human Resource Development (HRD) journals, the PsycINFO database, and the Academic Search Complete database, 67 articles and papers were identified for inclusion in the literature review. The authors argue that role salience research has implications for HRD professionals; however, role salience has largely been ignored in the HRD literature. The authors speculate on why role salience has not been common in HRD literature and ways in which role salience perspectives and related applications can benefit HRD, organizations, and individuals.

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Work-Role Salience: Comparison of Students in Career-Directed and General Degree Courses

Cited by 12 publications

References 12 publications

The career development of black and white South African university students

The career development of black and white South African university students

An Analysis of Gender and Ethnic Differences in College Students' Commitment to Work

Inspecting the Hierarchy of Life Roles

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