An investigation of the psychometric properties of the career education and development scales

An investigation of the psychometric properties of the career education and development scales

Career practitioners require access to valid and reliable measures of career development in young people in order to: provide students with a valid self-report tool; determine importance and need; and facilitate evidence-based practice. A suite of four Career Education and Development Scales (CEDSs): Primary; Junior; Senior; and Tertiary, were developed using the Career Education and Development Framework (CEDF) for use with students at varying stages of their educational timeline. The research undertook three studies to determine the measurement properties of the CEDSs. Study 1 tested the proposed factor structure of the CEDS-Senior in a sample of N = 567 students recruited from four schools across Australia and a sample of N = 272 students in an educational jurisdiction in Australia. Both Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFAs) recovered the hypothesised eight factors and correlations with the comparator measures provided evidence of concurrent validity. In Study 2, translated versions of CEDS-Senior and CEDS-Tertiary were utilised to collect data from a sample of Vietnamese students; N = 1463 for the CEDS-Senior Vietnam and N = 641 for the CEDS-Tertiary Vietnam. The two CFAs revealed an excellent fit for the eight-factor model, consistent with the original design for each scale and also reported strong correlations with the respective comparator measures. Study 3 examined the psychometric properties of CEDSJunior and CEDS-Primary. For CEDS-Junior, across a sample of N = 462 students, the CFA revealed a good fit for the hypothesized three-factor solution. For CEDS-Primary, across a sample of N = 212 students, the CFA revealed a good fit for the hypothesized three-factor solution. Strong correlations with the comparator measures provided additional evidence of concurrent validity of both scales. Applications of this research are outlined.

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