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Career education and career guidance are currently high-priority items on the national agenda. Many believe student career development to be the unifying theme and primary goal of career education efforts. It is in this context of national concern that ACT's “Nationwide Study of Student Career Development” was launched. The primary objective of the study was to assess and summarize core aspects of the career development of American youth. A nationally repre sentative sample of approximately 32,000 8th, 9th, and 11th grade students in 200 schools partici pated in the study in the Spring of 1973. This report focuses on the more salient findings of the study with results presented in terms of what students say, do, and know about career develop ment. A major finding is the sharp contrast between need for help with career planning and the help students have been receiving. In general, study results support the current emphasis on career guidance and career education. Because the study is unique, both in its focus and its national scope, results should provide educational policy makers and planners at both the national and local levels with a new perspective on the career development status and needs of students. NATIONWIDE STUDY OF STUDENT CAREER DEVELOPMENT: SUMMARY OF RESULTS Dale Prediger John Roth Richard Noeth1 I. BACKGROUND, PURPOSE, AND FOCUS OF STUDY Career education, with student career develop ment as a central theme, is currently a high-priority item on the national agenda. Federal, state, and local resources are being allocated to curriculum devel opment, pilot projects, field tests, and program implementation. Accompanying this thrust is a growing awareness—both among professional educators and the publics they serve—of the impor tance and complexity of the career choice process. Increasingly, work is being recognized as one of the central experiences of Man and Woman—as the making of a life as well as the making of a living (Super, 1957). A career can be defined briefly as encompassing the educational and vocational strands of life—the unfolding series of educational and vocational experiences and decisions related to a person’s pro ductive role in society. As viewed in the context of career development theory, career-related experi ences and decisions begin early in life and accumu late in their effect on subsequent decisions. The career-related decisions required of adolescents in today's society are especially difficult. Specialists in guidance have long recognized the dilemma inher ent in the increasing complexity of career options and the decreasing visibility of work as its location shifts from neighborhood main streets to industrial complexes and high-rise office buildings. Students apparently feel the impact of this dilemma, as one of the most salient findings of this study is the degree to which students, both boys and girls, recognize a need for career guidance. Recent labor market d iffi culties of college graduates, the growing recog nition that “ college” is just one of many socially acceptable post-high school options, and the impact of the women's liberation movement have no doubt contributed to this student awareness. Because of its potential contribution to the career development of students, career guidance is being recognized as a major responsibility of the nation’s schools. The time-extensive, developmental nature of career-related experiences and decisions pointto the need for developmental career guidance pro grams ratherthan the one-shot, square-peg, squarehole vocational counseling of the past. These programs, which involve community resources, the classroom, and guidance groups in addition to oneto-one counseling, are just now beginning to appear in significant numbers in the nation’s schools. Their effects are yet to be felt. The authors, who also served as co-directors of the study, are research psychologists in the Research and Development Division of ACT. The assistance of Bert Westbrook. Associate Professor of Psychology. North Carolina State University, in the development of the instruments used in the study is gratefully acknowledged. Jane Bergsten and David Bayless. sampling statisticians at Research Triangle Institute, provided invaluable help with sample design, selection, and weighting. Finally, we are grateful to Leo Munday, Vice President of the Research and Development Division of ACT. for his administrative support and helpful comments on an early draft of this report.
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