Career development patterns of junior high school students

Career development patterns (CDPs) refer to the combination of various individual characteristics/performances that would influence one’s career development behaviors. The Career Development Patterns Scale (CDPS) is a tool for exploring high school students’ six vocational CDPs and two academic CDPs, in which students’ academic abilities, career interests, work values, and multiple intelligences were measured. The purposes of this study were to examine the appropriateness of using the CDPS to assess junior high school (JHS) students, and to explore the CDPs of JHS students. Based on a sample of 814 JHS students, the major findings were as the following: (a) The CDPS is a valid and reliable tool for measuring the CDPs of JHS students; (b) In terms of superior patterns, Artistic was identified as the superior vocational CDP of most JHS students, but there were similar percentages of students superior in Humanistic and Scientific academic CDPs; (c) With regards to gender differences, male students had superior academic CDP in Scientific and superior vocational CDPs in Investigative and Realistic, whereas female students had superior academic CDP in Humanistic and superior vocational CDPs in Artistic, Social, and Conventional; (d) No significant differences were found across grades and genders in the proportions of students with different types of superior academic CDPs and vocational CDPs; and (e) In terms of pattern differentiation, female students were more distinct than male students in academic CDPs, and 9th graders were more distinct than 8th graders in vocational CDPs.