EFFICACY OF LEADER-LED AND SELF-DIRECTED CAREER WORKSHOPS FOR MIDDLE-AGED AND OLDER ADULTS

The differential effectiveness of leader-led and self-directed career and life planning workshops for 98 middle-aged and older adult partici pants was examined. First, a test of the magnitude of change on multip le attitudinal and behavioral variables revealed that participants imp roved regardless of treatment condition. Those participants in the lea der-led condition, however, had greater posttest employment research i nter-view behaviors than did participants in the self-directed conditi on, Second, 2 theoretically derived attributes, goal directedness and sociability structure, were chosen to test the interaction effects bet ween potentially salient participant attributes and workshop format. B y means of a multivariate multiple regression strategy, no Attribute X Treatment interactions were identified. Results of this study suggest that the career and life planning workshops were positively received regardless of format and participant attribute.