University students and career decidedness: effects of two computer-based career guidance interventions

摘要

The DISCOVER Program (American College Testing Program, 1995) is a widely used computer-assisted guidance program that reportedly increases career decidedness by providing users with a computer generated list of occupations representing a congruent fit between the individual's personality and possible work environments. A review of the literature, however, suggested a need for additional research exploring the effectiveness of DISCOVER with and without counselor intervention with various populations grouped by combinations of age, sex, and race.This article describes the effects of a counselor-plus-computer and computer-only intervention on increasing the level of career decidedness in a sample population of university students. Results of the study indicate that both the computer-only and counselor-plus-computer experimental conditions were significantly different from the delayed treatment control group. The results further indicate that the counselor-plus-computer experimental condition was significantly different from both the delayed treatment control group and the computer-only experimental condition group. No significance was found when controlling for age, gender, and race. Implication of the study's findings are discussed.