Career Orientation

Definition Pattern of job related preferences that remains fairly stable over a person’s work life. The direction that an individual takes, career-wise, throughout his or her life.

Instrument The Occupational Check List (by Holahan, & Galligan, 1985) List of 25 occupations considered traditional, non-traditional and neutral

Predictors: Individual Variables -academic ability -agentic characteristics -gender role attitudes

Importance of C.O A student's interest in a particular career can affect his approach toward his classwork and ultimately his academic achievement

Career orientation can be either functional or dysfunctional. Importance of C.O Career orientation can be either functional or dysfunctional.

Importance of C.O It can be functional if the student perceives the classwork as facilitating his entrance or performance in his chosen career. It can be dysfunctional if the student fails to see any real contribution of his academic pursuits to either assuming or performing the occupational role to which he is inclined.

Importance of C.O Another example… Research by Reitz (1979) showed that freshmen high in their orientation toward a teaching career underachieved in class performance. Upperclassmen highly oriented toward a teaching career overachieved relative to their less career-oriented classmates.

Possible Explanation…. Might be the student's perception of the relevance of the course content to success in his chosen career. Might be the degree to which the student has already been socialized into the educational institution. That is, to the extent that career orientation interferes with the student's socialization into the academic culture, it can be detrimental to his academic performance.