Career decision-making difficulties among Israeli and Palestinian Arab high-school seniors.

Making a career decision becomes a major priority for adolescents during the last year of high school. The present study examined the taxonomy of career decision-making difficulties among 1,613 Arab 12th-grade students attending schools in East Jerusalem, areas in the West Bank under the Palestinian National Authority, and Israel. No significant differences were found among the three locations; gender differences were found in the major category Lack of Readiness and in four scales (lack of motivation, general indecisiveness, lack of information about additional sources, and external conflicts). Implications for counseling high-school students are discussed.

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The term career indecision is defined in the broadest sense as difficulties individuals have when deciding on a career (Chartrand, Rose, Elliot, Marmarosh, & Caldwell, 1993; Gaff, Krausz, & Osipow, 1996; Leong & Chervinko, 1996), and refers to any problem or barrier arising in the decision-making process (Fuqua, Blum, & Hartman, 1988). Theory and research on indecision has focused on theoretical aspects of this concept (e.g., its dimensionality, Savickas, Carden, Toman, & Jarjoura, 1992; Shimizu, Vondracek, & Schulenberg, 1994) and on the distinction between temporary developmental indecision and deeper, more chronic and pervasive indecisiveness (Callanan & Greenhaus, 1992; Cohen, Chartrand & Jowdy, 1995; Santos, 2001).

In the theoretical realm, various approaches have been used in order to understand and describe indecision. For example, the psychodynamic approach (Bordin & Kopplin, 1973) attempted to classify difficulties according to their internal unconscious sources rather than visible symptoms. The developmental approach (Osipow & Fitzgerald, 1996; Super, 1953) used the notion of vocational self-concept to describe career decision difficulties, whereas the vocational interest approach (Holland, 1997) focused on problems in the consistency and crystallization of vocational preferences.

Gati et al., (1996) developed the taxonomy of difficulties in career decision making which was used as the theoretical framework in the present research. In this taxonomy the difficulties were defined as deviations from an "ideal career decision maker"--a person who is aware of the need to make a career decision, willing to make such a decision, and capable of making the decision "correctly" (based on an appropriate process and compatible with the individual's goals and resources). Any deviation from this model of an ideal career decision maker was regarded as a potential difficulty that could affect the individual's decision-making process in one of two possible ways: (a) by preventing the individual from making a career decision, or (b) by leading to a less than optimal career decision.

The taxonomy (Gaff et al., 1996) includes three major difficulty categories that are further divided into ten specific categories. The first major category, Lack of Readiness, includes three categories of difficulties that may arise before the beginning of the career decision-making process: (a) lack of motivation to engage in the career decision-making process, (b) general indecisiveness concerning all types of decisions, and (c) dysfunctional beliefs, including irrational expectations (Nevo, 1987) concerning the career decision-making process (e.g., "I believe there is only one ideal career for me").

The two other major difficulty categories, Lack of Information and Inconsistent Information, include types of difficulties that may arise during the actual career decision-making process. Lack of Information includes four categories of difficulties: (a) lack of knowledge about the steps involved in the process, (b) lack of information about the self, (c) lack of information about the various alternatives (e.g., occupations, high school classes, college majors), and (d) lack of information about the sources of additional information. The major category Inconsistent Information includes three types of problems in using information: (a) unreliable information, that is difficulties related to unreliable or contradictory information (e.g., above average high-school grades, but a low SAT score); (b) internal conflicts such as contradictory preferences or difficulties concerning the need to compromise; and (c) external conflicts (that is, conflicts involving the influence of significant others).

Further distinctions are made within each category; for example, within the category of lack of information about the self, a distinction is made between lack of information regarding the individual's preferences ("What do I want?") and capabilities ("What can I do?"). For a more detailed description and discussion of the taxonomy, see Gati et al. (1996).

The Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire (CDDQ; Gati et al., 1996) was constructed in order to empirically test the proposed theoretical taxonomy, in which each of the ten difficulty categories is represented by several statements (e.g., "It is usually difficult for me to make decisions"). Studying both American and Israeli samples of young adults, Gati et al. found a great similarity between the empirical structure of the three major categories and the ten specific categories, on the one hand, and the theoretical structure, on the other. Further support for the proposed structure was obtained by Osipow and Gaff (1998), who examined the construct and concurrent validity of the CDDQ, using the Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy-Scale (CDMSE, Taylor & Betz, 1983) and the Career Decision Scale (CDS, Osipow, Carney & Barak, 1976; Osipow & Winer, 1996). Lancaster, Rudolph, Perkins, and Patten's research (1999) supported the construct validity of the CDDQ, reporting a large difference between decided and undecided groups in the total CDDQ score. The structure was also supported in subsequent research (Gaff, Osipow, Krausz, & Saka, 2000; Gaff, Saka, & Krausz, 2001; Man, 2001).

In a recent study (Gaff & Saka, 2001), the taxonomy of difficulties proposed by Gati et al. (1996) was adapted to fit the difficulties faced by Israeli adolescents in three different high-school grades and decision situations: choosing a senior high school in the ninth grade (which is the last year of junior high school in Israel), choosing high-school elective courses during the tenth grade, and deciding which military job they would prefer (which is compulsory at the end of high school for most students) in the eleventh grade. The original questionnaire was revised and adapted for each of the three decision situations, and the structures of the ten difficulty categories were empirically examined in each of the three grades. Gari and Saka reported a great resemblance between the theoretical model and the empirical structure in each of the grades; in each one, the structures were similar to the hypothesized one. The structure across all grades (1,843 students) was almost identical to the theoretical structure. The present study aimed at examining the cross-cultural validity of the structure of difficulties among Arab adolescents, while focusing on the possible effects of their cultural and ethnic background.

ETHNIC AND CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ARAB SOCIETY

The religious laws of Islam and the customs of Arab society derived from them determine family roles. The traditional family is based on a patriarchal model in which the husband is the senior male and indisputable head of the household. The Qur'an and Arab culture establish that children must be protected and cherished, and that they must be obedient and committed to the will of their parents. While men honor their heritage by fulfilling their masculine role and fathering children (especially boys), women are expected to be modest and faithful, and to bear many children, preferably boys (Elkholy, 1988; Pryce-Jones, 1989). As in other patriarchal societies, in Arab society marriage is considered compulsory, and families tend to be large and extended. Although at present there is some flexibility regarding gender differences, which also affect the idea that women must be totally subordinate to men, there are still different socialization processes for male and female adolescents. The preference for boys also leads to higher expectations from them than from girls.

Another factor significantly affecting career decision processes is the political situation of Israeli Arabs. There are specific career constraints for Arabs in Israel. For example, jobs in specific occupational fields such as aviation or security-related industries are closed to Arab citizens; these career options are automatically eliminated from the range of options for Arab adolescents. In addition, there is great variance in the economic status of Arab families; on the average, their income is significantly lower than that of the average Jewish Israeli family. The percentage of Arab adolescents completing secondary school and passing the matriculation examination (33%) is lower than that of Jewish students (53%). There are relatively few Arab citizens working in prestigious occupations (medicine, law, engineering). The standard of living in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority is lower because of the political and military circumstances in those areas.

THE GOAL OF THE PRESENT RESEARCH

The goal of the present research was to examine the patterns of career decision-making difficulties among Israeli and Palestinians Arab high-school seniors. Specifically, we compared the career decision-making difficulties of males and females in three groups of Arab students, living in (a) areas under the Palestinian Authority, (b) East Jerusalem, and (c) Israel. Although comparisons of career decision making among students from different ethnic backgrounds are frequent in the American literature (see, for example, Gloria & Hird, 1999; Herring, 1998; Man, 2002), there is very little literature and research on the counseling of Arab students. For aspects of the counseling of Arabs in Arab countries, see Al-Khawaja (1998); on Muslims in the United States, see Locke (1998)). Our research examined the possible effects of common culture (the Arab culture shared by all three groups of students) and different economic, social, and political conditions (Israel, Palestinian Authority) on high-school seniors' perceptions of their difficulties in the career decision process.

Unlike most Jewish high school graduates in Israel, who face compulsory military service, Arab high school graduates in Israel are exempted from military service and thus face the same type of decisions as do high-school seniors in most countries-higher education, vocational training, or entering the work force. This situation is similar at Arab high schools under control of the Palestinian Authority which is in charge of the educational system in the West Bank.

METHOD

Participants

The sample consisted of 1,613 12th-grade Arab students--657 males (41%) and 954 females (59%)--from high schools in East Jerusalem (whose status is in dispute between Israel and the Palestinian Authority), the West-Bank Palestinian Authority, and Israel, who were about to graduate from high school and had to make a career decision. The mean age was 17.9 (SD = 0.58). The questionnaire was administered in eight high schools in East Jerusalem (n = 645), 7 high schools in the West Bank (n = 500), and 10 high schools in Israel (n = 468).

Questionnaire

The Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire (CDDQ) was abridged (from 44 items to 36) and translated from Hebrew into Arabic. Four experienced school counselors and an expert in the Arabic language participated in this process.

The first page of the anonymous questionnaire included a question on the extent of the student's deliberation about his or her career choice (very, to some extent, not at all), and two additional questions on whether the student had some vocational alternative in mind and his or her degree of confidence in that alternative (on a 9-point scale, 1 "not confident at all," 9 "very confident").

The subsequent four pages included 36 statements, each corresponding to a particular difficulty, and two validity items. The participants were asked to indicate the degree to which each statement described them on a 9-point scale (1 "does not describe me at all" to 9 "describes me well"). At the end of the questionnaire, students were asked to rate the overall severity of their difficulties in making the decision (on a 9-point scale).

Procedure

The students filled out the questionnaires during a class period. The questionnaires were handed out to the students by one of the researchers in the presence of a teacher, or by a teacher who was instructed on how to handle clarifications asked for by students. Students' questions, if any, were answered; no time limitation was given, and the time taken to fill out the questionnaire ranged from 30 to 45 minutes. The purpose of the research and its importance for improving school guidance were explained to the students, to increase their motivation and attention in filling out the questionnaire.

Analyses

First, the following scores were computed for each student: (a) the score of each of the 10 scales representing the 10 difficulty categories (defined as the mean of the items included in each scale), (b) the score of the three major categories (defined as the mean of the respective scales), and (c) an overall difficulty score (the mean of the 10 scale scores). Next, we computed the Cronbach alpha reliability for each of the 10 scales, the three major difficulty categories, and the overall difficulty score.

RESULTS

Psychometric Properties of the Questionnaire

The means, standard deviations and Cronbach alpha reliabilities of the 10 scales, 3 major categories and total CDDQ are presented in Table 1. As can be seen in Table 1, the 10 scales' internal consistency reliabilities vary significantly. The lowest internal consistency was observed for dysfunctional beliefs (.44); the reliability of the scale of lack of motivation was also rather low (.54). The other scales had moderate to high reliabilities, ranging from .57 for the scale of general indecisiveness to .79 for lack of information about self; the median scale reliability was .64. Among the three major categories, Lack of Readiness had the lowest reliability (.52); the reliability of the two other major categories was much higher (.89 for Lack of Information, and .80 for Inconsistent Information). The reliability of the whole questionnaire was .90. The correlations between each of the difficulty categories and the overall subjective severity ratings are presented at the right-hand side column. The highest correlation was between the major category of Lack of Information and the subjective severity ratings--.48.

The Internal Structure of the CDDQ To test the fit of the theoretical model to the empirical data, we carried out a confirmatory factor analysis using EQS6 (Bentler, 1995). The [chi square] was large ([chi square] (32, N = 1420) = 216.10, p < .001); however, the [chi square] statistic is heavily influenced by sample size (Byrne, 2001). Indeed, all the other goodness-of-fit indices that were examined to evaluate the hypothesized model revealed a good fit: GFI = .97, NFI = .95, CFI = .96, TLI = .94, and RMSEA = .06.

We also carried out a cluster analysis that indicated that the empirical structure of the difficulties for the two samples are very close to the theoretical model (Gaff et al., 1996). The scales were grouped into three clusters corresponding to the hypothesized three major categories--Lack of Readiness, Lack of Information, and Inconsistent Information. A distinction arises between the first major category, which includes difficulties arising prior to the career decision-making process, and the other two major categories, which include difficulties arising during the process itself. Nevertheless, there was a deviation from the theoretical model in both samples: the external conflicts scale was included in the main cluster of Lack of Readiness instead of in Inconsistent Information. This deviation was observed in American samples as well (Gati et al.; Osipow & Gati, 1998).

Degree of Decidedness

Almost one third of the students (516) reported they were deliberating about their career choice, 900 participants (56%) reported they were deliberating to some extent, and 195 (12%) reported they were not deliberating at all. No gender differences were found on this question ([chi square] (2) = 0.20, ns). A two-way ANOVA (with degree of decidedness and gender as the independent variables, and the total score on the CDDQ as the dependent variable) revealed a significant main effect for degree of decidedness (F(2, 1410) = 99.81, p < .01, [[eta].sup.2] = .12); no gender differences were found (F(1, 1410) = 1.61, ns), nor was there any interaction between degree of decidedness and gender (F(2, 1410) = 0.01, ns).

A t-test was conducted to compare the total CDDQ score between students who had some vocational alternatives in mind and those who did not. This comparison revealed that, as expected, the total CDDQ score was lower in the former than the latter group (t(1417) = 7.47, p < .01, d = 0.46). Similar differences were also observed in the three major difficulty categories.

For those participants who reported that they had an occupational alternative in mind, we computed the Pearson correlation between the degree of confidence in that alternative and the total score of the CDDQ: as expected, the observed correlation was negative (r = -.28, p < .01).

Differences among the Three Locations

We compared the mean difficulties for the students in the three different locations (i.e., East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Israel) using a one-way ANOVA. Although the differences were statistically significant (due to the larger N) in all 10 difficulty categories, they were small, and [[eta].sup.2] (the percentage of accounted-for variance) was less than 2% in all categories, reflecting the similarity in the mean difficulties in the three geographical locations.

Gender Differences

We computed the means and the standard deviations for the boys and the girls for the 10 difficulty scales, the three major categories, and the total questionnaire score. These results are presented in Table 2. The t statistics for the difference between boys and girls and the effect size d (Cohen, 1992) are also presented in Table 2.

The largest differences between genders were found in the major category Lack of Readiness, and two of its three scales: lack of motivation and general indecisiveness; all these differences were statistically significant (p < 0.01). However, while boys reported greater difficulties related to lack of motivation, girls reported greater difficulties in general indecisiveness. As hypothesized, boys reported greater difficulties than girls in the scale external conflicts; in addition, boys reported greater difficulty in the scale lack of information about additional sources of information.

DISCUSSION

The goal of the present study was to examine the pattern of Israeli and Palestinian Arab high-school students' career decision-making difficulties, while focusing on the effect of cultural and ethnical background. The major findings indicated that the general structure of these difficulties was similar to both the theoretical model and the structures found in Jewish Israeli and American samples (Gati et al., 1996; Man, 2001; Osipow & Gati, 1998). However, a few unique gender differences and specific deviations from the theoretical structure were found. Finally, we found that differences in the political situation among these three samples of Arab students (Israeli, Palestinian Authority and East Jerusalem) were not reflected in the degree or patterns of difficulties.

We found greater difficulties related to general indecisiveness among girls than boys. This may indicate that Arab female adolescents might be facing a higher degree of conflicts and difficulties related to general indecisiveness due to the gap between their own psychological needs and the low societal expectations from them. An Arab woman is expected to attribute higher importance to her roles as a mother and a wife than as a career person (Sa'dawi, 1990). The socialization messages from school, peers, and family members affect Arab women's self-esteem. As compared to male adolescents, Arab adolescent females reported higher feelings of inferiority (Sa'dawi). Abrahim (1993) states that although there have been some changes in the status of Arab women in recent decades (i.e., more legitimization for success in the academic field and the workplaces), their basic stand within the family structure and in Arab society remains stable. We also found that male adolescents know less about where to find additional information on their career alternatives and show higher levels of external conflicts (perhaps because they are challenging traditional values and expectations) than their female counterparts. Can these findings be understood as showing that the girls have an advantage over the boys? Since the girls have higher levels of general indecisiveness, they might spend less effort searching for additional sources of information, and their lower levels of external conflict may indicate that they are more obedient and less willing to confront their gender-biased socio-cultural environments.

It is of major importance to try to understand the interaction between gender differences on aspirations for career achievements and the broader socio-cultural norms that shape boys' and girls' attitudes and behaviors (Cook, 1993). The interaction of gender with socio-cultural context may produce different lifestyle opportunities and demands for men and women.

One of the interesting findings which emerged in the present study was, contrary to implicit expectations, the lack of difference among the three groups of students in the three different locations. These locations differ not only in the their political status, but also in their economic situation and standard of living. Although there were slight differences in the extent of career decision-making difficulties among the three groups, they were negligible in terms of effect size. This pattern is compatible with the claim that most of the variance is accounted for by individual differences within each of the groups, rather than by external factors.

Implications for Counseling

Career guidance. Providing career guidance for high-school students has been found to characterize the more traditional roles of school counselors (Bradley & Cox, 2001). School counselors are trained in career theory and development and are concerned with linking their students' career decisions to their educational progress. At the high school senior level, counselors should help students find information that will enable them to make informed career choices. Information about career opportunities can be found in local news resources, employment offices, and federal guides. In addition, school counselors olden use computer-based systems to help students gather information about careers of interest to them (Schmidt, 1999). As pointed out recently by Beale (2001), school counselors are frequently called upon to assist their students with their concerns about future careers.

In line with the increasing emphasis on results-based counseling programs, the American School Counselor Association (ASCA, 1997) has suggested that school success requires students to make successful transitions, which involves the acquisition of the attitudes, skills, and knowledge that are essential to the competitive workplace. One of the areas in which counseling programs should facilitate student development is career development (Gysbers, 2001). The three U.S. national standards that students should meet in career development are: (a) acquiring the skills to investigate the world of work in relation to knowledge of the self and to make informed career decisions, (b) employing strategies to achieve future career success and satisfaction; and (c) understanding the relationships among personal qualifies, education, and training and the world of work (Herr, 1999).

One of the major implications of this research for school counselors stems from the observed distinction between difficulties arising before engagement in the process and difficulties that arise during the actual process. First, school counselors can decrease the chance of the emergence of difficulties involving lack of readiness by appropriate preparation, using group (or class) intervention aimed at increasing students' motivation to actively engage in the career decision they are about to make. Instruction about the stages and steps involved in making career decisions may also help decrease the students' general indecisiveness. Discussion of beliefs about the career decision-making process can help minimize students' dysfunctional thoughts. The CDDQ can serve the school counselor as a needs assessment tool, to discover both the relative and the absolute extent of difficulties in each of the 10 categories.

In addition, the students' responses to the CDDQ can provide school counselors with information both about the students' need for information about themselves and about the relevant options. The individual students' difficulty profile can provide information about their specific needs to help them to overcome difficulties in the use of the information, and in particular help them deal with difficulties involving internal conflicts and conflicts related to significant others. The reliabilities of the scale scores may be used for general needs assessment, but conclusions regarding a particular individual student should be drawn with caution due to the low reliability of the Lack of Readiness difficulty category. Thus, the individual profile should be used mainly as a starting point for an in-depth assessment of the student's difficulties. Finally, the CDDQ can also be used as a means for evaluating the effectiveness of interventions aimed at facilitating the students' career development.

Cultural context. Since educational systems are becoming increasingly multicultural, one of the most important challenges for school mental health professionals is to be aware of and cope with the special needs of different racial, ethnic, religious, and national student populations. Several reports have considered counselors' work with heterogeneous client populations. Specifically, strategies have been proposed for counseling approaches to racial and ethnic minorities (Atkinson, Thompson, & Grant, 1993), immigrant children and adolescents (Kopala, Esquivel, & Baptiste, 1994; Tatar, 1998), and international and foreign students (Khoo, Abu-Rasain, & Hornby, 1994; Leong & Choung, 1996; Tatar & Horenczyk, 2000).

The question of cultural diversity raises a pivotal ethical question for clinicians and counselors: To what extent can they become a viable helping resource? This is an issue that calls for an educated awareness of how one applies professional training to deliver quality care and be optimally beneficial in serving the needs of one's clients (Lefley, 2002). Lee and Kurilla (1997) see continuing education as a pathway to achieving competence in counseling ethically and effectively across cultures. Ethical practice demands that practitioners who have not received adequate training in counseling individuals from diverse backgrounds participate in ongoing professional education to become culturally effective counselors.

Ethical hazards may also emerge when counselors deal with clients from different cultural backgrounds. For example, "color blind" therapists or counselors with a universalistic approach, also believe that all people (clients) should be treated equally without acknowledgement of race or culture, and may misunderstand their clients because they choose to ignore important information (Acton, 2001). In addition, counselors need to take into account possible conflicts between their efforts to promote an ethic of individualism, following their cultural-professional view, and the worldviews of non-Western clients (Wall, Needham, Browning & James, 1999).

It should be clear, as stated recently by Gysbers (2001), that guidance and counseling programs are designed to serve all students. This goal is based on the assumption that all students (regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, cultural background, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, etc.) can and should profit from the services of comprehensive guidance and counseling programs. School counselors are especially challenged when dealing with minority students or those from different cultural backgrounds who might have to confront a much more complex reality than their mainstream counterparts. This reality involves cultural conditions and economic and social constraints in which these students live, study, and work.. Major challenges for counselors may include the following (Kiselica & Ramsey, 2001; Locke, 1998; Sue, Arredondo & McDavis, 1992):

* Developing an awareness of one's own cultural biases.

* Gaining comprehensive knowledge of the various groups with whom the counselor interacts.

* Realizing the importance and relevance of the worldviews of ethno-cultural minorities.

* Adopting appropriate counseling techniques that better fit their clients' culture.

The situation of Arab students in Israel is special. Since proficiency in the students' language is the main tool in school counseling, counselors who do not speak Arabic are unlikely to work with Arab students. Although the counseling process may benefit from the similarity between the school counselors' cultural background and that of their clients, the counselors need to be aware of their own possible internal conflict between their professional standards and their cultural norms and values. In general, school counselors face important challenges in the field of career decision making:

* Becoming aware of the unique needs of diverse racial and ethnic groups (Flares, Spanierman, & Obasi, 2003).

* Assessing the students' readiness to engage in the career decision-making process (Sampson, Peterson, Reardon, & Lenz, 2000).

* Becoming aware that cultural and gender differences affect the frequency with which the students use career counseling services and their satisfaction with these services (Man & Fernandes, 2001).

* Identifying specific difficulties these students face during their career-decision process by wise use of the CDDQ to provide information about the needs of the students both individually and as a group (Gaff & Saka, 2001).

* Becoming aware of both culture-based systematic group differences and important individual differences in the pattern of career decision-making difficulties.

* Creating a school climate in which students' career expectations and family values are respected.

* Helping students see how their own and their family's expectations regarding careers can be mutually enhancing rather than conflictual.

* Understanding the interaction between the students' socio-cultural environment and gender differences.

* Realizing that even within the Arab population, cultural diversity is prevalent: Muslims versus Christians, those living in cities versus those living in villages, etc.

* Committing oneself as a mental-health professional to be a leader of social action (Tatar & Bekerman, 2002).

In sum, the CDDQ provides school counselors with information about the needs of the students; such information can provide the counselor with a means of facilitating the students' career decision-making process and enhancing the quality of their decisions.

Table 1. Means, Standard Deviations, Reliabilities of the CDDQ Scales,
and their Correlation with Severity (N = 1613)

                            Number                        Correlation
                              of                Cronbach     with
Scale                       Items    M     SD    Alpha     Severity

Lack of Readiness

Lack of motivation            3     3.34  2.13    .54        .07 *
General indecisiveness        4     5.32  1.79    .57        .32 *
Dysfunctional beliefs         4     6.34  1.52    .44       -.06

Lack of Information about

The process                   3     4.69  2.10    .76        .39 *
The self                      6     4.65  1.89    .79        .47 *
Alternatives                  3     5.23  2.10    .74        .38 *
Additional sources
of information                2     4.57  2.20    .64        .35 *

Inconsistent Information

Unreliable information        3     4.64  2.03    .60        .39 *
Internal conflicts            6     4.80  1.70    .69        .36 *
External conflicts            2     3.75  2.32    .64        .27 *
Lack of Readiness            11     5.00  1.12    .52        .19 *
Lack of Information          14     4.78  1.69    .89        .48 *
Inconsistent Information     11     4.39  1.63    .80        .42 *
Total CDDQ                   36     4.71  1.20    .90        .47 *

* p < .01

Table 2. Means and Standard Deviations of the CDDQ Scales According
to Participants' Gender
                                Boys        Girls
                              (n=649)      (n=951)

Scale                            M           SD        M      SD

Lack of Readiness

Lack of motivation              3.76        2.26      3.05   1.99

General indecisiveness          5.11        1.79      5.47   1.81

Dysfunctional beliefs           6.42        1.46      6.28   1.57

Lack of Information about

The process                     4.72        2.08      4.68   2.11

The self                        4.75        1.83      4.58   1.94

Alternatives                    5.33        2.05      5.17   2.13

Additional sources
of information                  4.73        2.15      4.46   2.22

Inconsistent Information

Unreliable information          4.61        1.97      4.67   2.06

Internal conflicts              4.82        1.66      4.79   1.73

External conflicts              3.94        2.29      3.63   2.33

Lack of Readiness               5.10        1.16      4.94   1.09

Lack of Information             4.87        1.62      4.72   1.72

Inconsistent Information        4.44        1.60      4.35   1.64

Total CDDQ                      4.78        1.20      4.67   1.20

                             Difference
Scale                            t        [d.sup.1]

Lack of Readiness

Lack of motivation            6.42 **        0.33

General indecisiveness       -3.98 **       -0.20

Dysfunctional beliefs         1.84           0.09

Lack of Information about

The process                   0.37           0.02

The self                      1.75           0.09

Alternatives                  1.51           0.08

Additional sources
of information                2.40 *         0.12

Inconsistent Information

Unreliable information       -0.66          -0.03

Internal conflicts            0.36           0.02

External conflicts            2.66 **        0.14

Lack of Readiness             2.74 **        0.14

Lack of Information           1.66           0.08

Inconsistent Information      0.98           0.05

Total CDDQ                    1.63           0.08

* p < .05 ** p < .01

[d.sup.1] denotes effect size (Cohen, 1992)

Portions of this research were presented at the symposium "Cross-cultural perspectives on career decision-making difficulties," 110th Convention of the American Psychological Association, Chicago, IL. We thank Tali Ever-Hadani, Naomi Goldblum, Tali Kleiman, Eleana Meyers, and Noa Saka for their comments on an earlier version of this article.

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Yahya Hijazi is a doctoral student. Moshe Tatar, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer. Itamar Gati is a professor. All are with the School of Education, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.