Various factors have shown to relate to different forms of career commitment (i.e., affective, continuance, and normative commitment). Commitment has been associated with intent to remain within a profession or organization, suggesting that commitment is an important component of career retention. Correspondingly, commitment to one's academic…

Based on the standard error of measurement, Holland (1985) suggested the "rule of eight" for determining the meaningfulness of differences between two summary scores on the Self Directed Search. The present study empirically examined the rule's validity for practice. The participants were 2397 (1497 females and 900 males) undergraduate…

This study examined the career aspirations and self-perceptions of University Honors Program students at Indiana State University. The current trend in education, especially gifted and talented education, focuses on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). How has this impacted the gifted and talented population when they become…

Administered Self-Directed Search to university seniors (n=68) who were majoring in Chemistry/Chemical Engineering, Elementary Education, or Office Administration. Resulting three-letter summary codes were compared with three-letter college major codes obtained from College Majors Finder. A high degree of agreement between two sets of codes was…

Explores the differences in coping styles between students who made congruent, incongruent, and undecided college major choices as defined by the Self-Directed Search and the College Majors Finder. Coping strategies were defined by the Ways of Coping Questionnaire and the Coping Inventory. The findings suggest that male and female students report…

Assessed predictability of Holland's Investigative personality--Self-Directed Search (SDS)--and three consistency levels over seven-year period. Results indicated that for Investigative-type males, SDS has moderately high efficiency in predicting actual job entry, graduate major, and ideal and projected career plans. Differential predictability of…

Nearly all S's who completed Holland's Self-Directed Search (SDS) without supervision made errors which affected their final three--letter summary codes. Such errors were unrelated to: (1) extent of subjects' interest in knowing more about occupations or majors they might like; or (2) whether they felt occupations suggested by summary codes seemed…

Graduating seniors in the School of Business who were in either accounting, marketing, or behavioral studies and were seeking a career consistent with their area's concentration were compared for their scores on the Self-Directed Search. The accounting group was consistently differentiated from the other group. (Author)

Self Directed Search (SDS) and Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) results occupations and fields of study were organized to show the distributions of personalities within an occupation or field of study. The results show that single fields tolerate several types, but some types occur only infrequently. (Author)

Increase in predictability of vocational plans of college women (N=152) was sought by using variables from Holland's Self-Directed Search (SDS). The most recent daydream and summary of daydream codes were the best single predictors of academic major. The most recent daydream was the best single predictor of vocational plans. (Author)