An Examination of Circumscription and Compromise in Career Decision-Making Among College Students

133 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1988.This study examined some hypotheses generated from Gottfredson's theory of career aspiration (1981, Journal of Counseling Psychology, 28, 545-597). Gottfredson suggested that individuals eliminate career choice based on sextype, prestige, and field of interest. The theory maintained that individuals would only explore occupations that are within one's acceptable levels of sextype and prestige, which Gottfredson called the zone of acceptable alternatives. A total of 95 male and 151 female subjects participated in this study, and they responded to several instruments related to the certainty of career decision, sex-role orientation, and career interest. They were also asked to respond to a forced choice questionnaire requiring them to state their occupational preference from a pair of alternatives. Lastly, they were asked to report, from a list of 155 occupations, vocational choices that they have considered in their lives so far. Five different indicators were computed from the data as operational definitions of the zone of acceptable alternatives. It was generally found that the indicators of the zone of acceptable alternatives changed across different life periods, and that the ranges of prestige and sextype that individuals considered tended to increase until around ages 16 and 17. Sex differences were found. When compared with females, males tended to consider occupations with higher prestige levels, but they were less likely to cross over the sextype boundary. The relationship between the indicators of the zone of acceptable alternatives and career decisiveness, sex-role orientation, interest pattern, and choice of academic major were also examined. The results were discussed in terms of their implications for the validity of Gottfredson's theory, for career counseling and for future research.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD