Intervention components and working alliance as predictors of individual career counseling effect on career decision-making difficulties

摘要

Despite the convincing results regarding the effectiveness of individual career counseling on career decision-making difficulties, little is known about the processes that lead to these outcomes. This study examined the impact of intervention components and working alliance on the decrease of career decision-making difficulties. Participants were 114 university students who received an average of 3.17 sessions of naturally occurring career counseling. Results indicated that four intervention components significantly predicted the change in the overall level of career decision-making difficulties. These intervention components are written exercises in-session (occupational analyses), individualized feedbacks on career choice, occupational information in-session about career options, and dealing with career-related barriers. Working alliance significantly moderates the effects of both individualized feedbacks and written exercises on the change in the overall career decision-making difficulties. More specifically, the effects of individualized feedbacks and written exercises on total career decision-making difficulties were significant only when working alliance was either average or high.