THE RELATION OF CAREER-RELATED WORK OR INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCES TO THE CAREER-DEVELOPMENT OF COLLEGE SENIORS

This study examined the relationship between career-related work or in ternship experiences and six career development indices: decidedness, self-concept crystallization, amount of occupational information, care er self-efficacy, vocational commitment, and tendency to foreclose. We further explored whether perceived characteristics of the experiences (e.g., autonomy, task variety) were differentially associated with ca reer development progress. Participants were 165 seniors with and with out career-related experiences who sought services at a university car eer services office. Results suggest that internship experience, eithe r alone or in combination with work experience, is related to higher l evels of self-concept crystallization, but is not related to amount of occupational information, self-efficacy, decidedness, vocational comm itment, or tendency to foreclose. Additional findings were that the pe rceived work or internship characteristics of task variety, feedback, and opportunities for dealing with people were significantly associate d with self-concept crystallization, amount of occupational informatio n, and self-efficacy. However, the characteristics of autonomy, task i dentity, and friendship opportunities were not significantly related t o any of the career development measures. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc .