1. The Implications of Preference Crystallization on Career Decision- Making Itamar Gati and Aviva Shimoni Hebrew University Beit Berl of Jerusalem Academic College

2. 2 Facilitating Career Decision-Making is one of the goals of career counseling One approach for guiding this process is the PIC model: Prescreening career alternatives to locate a small and manageable set of promising occupations In-depth exploration of promising alternatives to locate the suitable ones Choice of the most suitable alternative

3. 3 The goal to locate a small group of promising alternatives which merit an in-depth exploration The means clients’ career-related preferences (including interests, length of training, team work, verbal ability, etc.) The 3 Facets of Preferences: 1. The relative importance of each aspect 2. The level regarded as optimal 3. Additional, less desirable, but yet acceptable level(s) – reflecting the willingness to compromise Prescreening

4. 4 Crystallization of Preferences refers to the degree to which individuals are aware of what they regard as desirable, undesirable, and unacceptable, and which aspects are important, less important, and unimportant to them. Why is this important? The degree of preference crystallization is an indicator of decision-making readiness uncrystallized preferences can lead to non- optimal choices Assessing the Crystallization of Preferences

5. 5 1. Defining the concept of preference crystallization as expressed in terms of career-related aspects by adopting and adapting concepts from vocational interest 2. Developing a theoretically-based and empirically-tested quantitative model for assessing clients’ degree of preference crystallization 3. Validating the proposed indicators using experts’ judgments and client’s self-reports The Goal

6. 6 Differentiation between the aspects’ ratings, reflected by the variance and the resolution of the client’s preferences Consistency between the ratings of related aspect couples (e.g., travel - work environment) Coherence among the 3 facets of preferences (relative importance and optimal level, and relative importance and willingness to compromise) The Proposed Indicators of Preference Crystallization

7. 7 METHOD Participants Experts – 20 career counselors Clients – 247 MBCD users Clients – 1019 Surfers in Future Directions Tools Making Better Career Decisions - a self-directed, Internet- based career guidance system based on the PIC model. Prescreening is based on sequential-elimination, using the individuals' preferences in 31 career-related aspects Future Direction – a free, anonymous Israeli Internet career guidance portal; the assessment of preference crystallization is based on the algorithm developed and validated using the expert counselors’ judgments

8. 8 Making Better Career Decisions http://mbcd.intocareers.org

9. 9 Future Directions http://www.kivunim.comhttp://www.kivunim.com An Israeli website in Hebrew, designed for assisting deliberating individuals in making their career decisions. It is a public service and is offered free of charge.

10. 10 METHOD - Procedure VALIDATION BY EXPERTS Career counselors’ expert judgments of the preference crystallization of career clients Data - Career-related preferences of 6 individuals from a sample of 247 cases from the database of MBCD VALIDATION BY CLIENTS’ SELF-REPORTS of vocational decisiveness Data - 247 MBCD clients’ career-related preferences and self-reported vocational decisiveness VALIDATION BY CLIENTS’ SELF-REPORTS Clients’ self-reported degree of preference crystallization Data - 1019 Future Directions young adults self- assessed and measured aspects-based-estimate of preference crystallization

11. 11 Results - VALIDATION BY COUNSELORS: Crystallization of Preferences Judged crystallization

12. 12 RESULTS - VALIDATION BY EXPERTS Correlations between Experts’ Judgments and the respective Computed Measures of Preference Crystallization Counselors’ Judgment Measures of Crystallization **97.Overall Crystallization **97.Differentiation 81.Consistency *85.Coherence

13. 13 RESULTS - VALIDATION BY CLIENTS’ SELF-REPORTED VOCATIONAL DECIDEDNESS One way ANOVA: Group 4 [users who had "a defined vocational direction”] had higher overall crystallization than Group1 [“do not have even a general sense of direction”] Degree of Decidedness 1 2 3 4 n=57 n=75 n=100 n=14 F (3,242) Overall Crystallization 57.14 58.18 58.67 62.32 (6.49) (6.17) (6.11) (4.21) 2.81 *

14. 14 Preference Crystallization

15. 15 Self assessed crystallization (%) High Medium Low Measured– model-based estimate of preference crystallization 111210 High 1013 Medium 91211 Low Highly crystallized (33%) Medium crystallization (13%) Low crystallization (36%) Others (inconsistent) (19%) Results – Degree of Preference Crystallization (N=1019)

16. 16 Self assessed crystallization (%) HighMedium Low Model-based assessment of preference crystallization 111210 High 1013 Medium 91211 Low Results – Degree of Preference Crystallization (N=1019) (35%) Accurate (35%) "Modest” (31%) Overconfidence In measured pref. crystallization difference between men and women: 43% of men tend to be medium, women about 1/3 in each level

17. 17 Major Findings Individuals differ in the degree of the crystallization of their preferences Individuals differ in the awareness of the degree to which their preferences are crystallized The proposed measures of preference- crystallization matched experts’ judgments Clients with more crystallized preferences were more decisive

18. 18 Theoretical & Practical Implications Expanding the concept of vocational-interest crystallization to the crystallization of career-related preferences Face-to-face Counseling: Assessing client’s readiness in terms of their crystallization of career-related preferences Integration of crystallization indicators based on career-related aspects into self-help Internet (computerized) interactive programs – guiding clients with low levels of preference crystallization to face-to-face counseling

19. 19 Itamar.gati@huji.ac.il www.cddq.org

20. 20 Results - VALIDATION BY STUDENTS: Crystalization of Preferences

21. 21 3 indicators of crystallization Measures of Preference Crystallization CoherenceConsistencyDifferentiation 3 facets of preferences Ri-OL Coh Ri-ConRi-DifRelative importance Ri-Wc Coh Ol-ConOl-DifOptimal level Wc-ConWc-DifWillingness to compromise OVERALL COH OVERALL CON OVERALL DIF OVERALL CRYSTALIZATTION