An investigation of career decidedness in relation to "big five" personality constructs in adolescene

Abstract

Researchers have begun to investigate relations between the career decidedness construct and the Five-Factor Model of personality, but the data are limited and therefore inconclusive. To address gaps, extend previous research, this study seeks to investigate the relationship among personality traits and career decidedness. Moreover, this study test the replicability of the original (North American) Big Five Adolescent Personal Style Inventory factor structure in the Arabic speaking poupulation beside it develop and test a new instrument in career decidedness. The participants constitited of 3260 students from the 10th, 11th and 12th grade, whom randomly were selected from the graduating class of 2008 in Sutanate of Oman. There are two instruments that were used in this study. The first is the The Adolescent Personal Style Inventory (APSI) (Lounsbury, Tatum, et al., 2003). The Second is The Adolescent decidedness Inventory. The APSI used to measure the five factors of personality (Neuroticism, Extroversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness). As there was no Arabic version for the APSI yet available. The preliminary part of the research focus on the traslation of this instrument into the Arabic language through a series of traslation and back-translation processes. The results provide evidence that the adapted instrument achieved sound psychometric properties. The reliability test indicated that the instrument was reliable given the overall reliability value of Cronbach's Alpha was . 769. The findings revealed that with yhe use of EFA, Big Five Adolescent Personality Inventory construct produced 5 significant factors. The CFA results showed that the goodness-of-fit indices for the revised model were as follows: x2 (df=179)=387.903, CFI=.923; GFI=.965, PCOLOSE=1.00 and RMSEA=.034; each of the indices Adolescents decidedness Inventory (ACDI) and validate it. The ACDI measure the individual was above the threshould values. Two separate studies were conducted to develop The along eight dimensions: decidedness, comfort, Career Choice Anxiety, External Barrier, Need for Information, Readiness, Career Salience, and Inconsistent Information. The instrument has been devised and validated through a scientific method to ensure its reliability and validity. The results provide evidence that the developed instrument achieved sound psychometric properties. The overall reliability value of Cronbach's Alpha was .935. Also by Using EFA, The Adolescent decidedness Inventory construct produced 8 significant factors. The CFA results showed that the goodness-of-fit indices for the revised model were as follow: x² (df=712)=1802.559, CFI=.913; GFI=.927, PCOLOSE=1.00 and RMSEA=.036; each of the indices was above the threshould values. Analysis of the measurement invariance across samples confirmed the instrument's factorial validity. Moreover, Big Five personality traits were analyzed in relation to career decidedness among adolescents. Neuroticism was found to be negatively related to career decideness. While, Extroversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness constructs were positively and significantly correlated with career decideness. Results are discussed in terms of implications for future research and career development efforts