ENHANCING A SENSE OF AGENCY THROUGH CAREER PLANNING

This study tested the effectiveness of a program for parents to help t heir adolescent sons and daughters develop a greater sense of agency r egarding a career. In a pretest-posttest control group design involvin g 39 families in the experimental group and 25 families in a wait-list ed control group, a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) with re peated measures was used to test improvement on 6 variables concerned with career and a sense of agency. The MANOVA yielded a significant ef fect for groups over time. Analysis of variance with repeated measures showed that 4 of 6 univariate tests were also significant. Through ca reer planning with a parent, adolescents in Grade 12 showed greater ca reer certainty, less indecision, more career salience, and stronger eg o identity.