Searching for tools versus asking for answers: A taxonomy of counselee behavioral styles during career counseling

This article presents a new taxonomy of decision-making behavioral styles s pecific to clients in career counseling. It argues that clients differ alon g a dimension of "searching for tools versus asking for answers," that has three components: activity, independence, and insightfulness. Activity and independence have previously been discussed in the literature as a single c omponent; client's insightfulness has not been treated as a component of be havioral style. The proposed taxonomy was tested on data from 372 clients o f 11 vocational counselors using two confirmatory techniques, Similarity St ructure Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Analyses confirmed the e xistence of the three correlated yet distinguishable components of one gene ral dimension. Hypothesized relations of the activity, independence, and in sightfulness components with counselors' satisfaction with both the process of counseling and its results were also supported.