A Study of Adolescent Career Thoughts

This study used ordinary least squares multiple regressions to examine 10th-, 11th, and 12th-grade Career and Technical High (CTC) School students gender, student disability, student grade, highest education level of most educated parent, parental attachment, and parental involvement on career thoughts and its constructs of Decision Making Confusion (DCM), Commitment Anxiety (CA), and External Conflict (EC). In addition, Cohens d effect sizes and confidence intervals were used to examine for statistically significant difference in 11th- and 12th-grade CTC high school students Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI) dysfunctional career thinking total scores and subscale scores of DMC, CA, and EC compared to 11th- and 12th-grade academic high school students CTI global and subscale scores. Results for 376 CTC high school students suggested that parental attachment subscale scores of Trust and Alienation contributed to dysfunctional career thinking scores and its subscale scores. Findings between 299 CTC high school students and 396 academic high school students indicate no practical significance for career thoughts total and CA scores but practical significance for DCM and EC scores.