Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
Browse
3 results
Search Results
Item Evolution of Occupational Choices in Young Adults from 1960 to 2010(2015) Hong, Vanessa Lauren; Gottfredson, Gary D; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Across time, the roles of women and men in the workforce have evolved. Crossing traditional gender barriers in occupational choice has become more commonplace, particularly for women who have seen domestic role changes interact with employment options. Data from the 1960 through 2000 decennial censuses and the 2010 American Community Survey were analyzed to determine trends in young adults’ occupational choices classified according to Holland’s occupational types and level of complexity, and to determine whether young adults have increasingly crossed traditional gender career barriers. The hypotheses were that while greater percentages of young women than young men (ages 18 to 29 years) would have been employed in the Artistic, Social, and Conventional categories in more recent decades, the differences in proportionate representation of young women and young men would have decreased from 1960 to 2010; that while there would have been greater percentages of young men than young women employed in the Realistic, Investigative, and Enterprising categories, the differences in proportionate representation of young men and young women would have decreased from 1960 to 2010; and that while young men would continue to be employed in work of higher mean cognitive complexity than young women, the difference in the complexity level of work done by young men and young women would have decreased from 1960 to 2010. The data are reported as percentages of women and men employed in occupations in the six Holland categories each decade, and the mean cognitive complexity of occupations in which women and men were employed from 1960 to 2010. Trends over time were examined by plotting the percentages of women and men employed in occupations in each of the six Holland categories and the mean cognitive complexity for occupations for women and men 1960 to 2010. In order to capture the overall change from 1960 to 2010, the following were calculated: odds of men and women being employed in each Holland occupational category, the relative odds from men to women in 1960 and 2010, the relative odds for women and men from 1960 to 2010, and the change in relative odds (ratio of relative odds) from 1960 to 2010. The results indicate that in the traditionally female-dominated areas, the difference between the representation of women and men did not decrease as a result of men entering traditionally female-dominated occupations. In the traditionally male-dominated areas, the difference between the representation of men and women did not decrease with the exception of the Enterprising area. The average cognitive complexity of occupations of women did come closer to that of men in the Realistic, Investigative, and Enterprising areas over time, but were fairly consistent with that of men in the Artistic, Social, and Conventional areas from 1960 to 2010. The information gained from this study elucidates changes in the gender composition of various types of work according to a psychological classification of occupations, aids career counselors in understanding whether the actual employment of young adults has reflected those aspirations of college students for women and men, and provides guidance as to how to shape young people’s occupational aspirations in the context of employment reality.Item THE ROLES OF FAMILY AND CULTURE IN THE CAREER INTERESTS AND CHOICE GOALS OF ASIAN AMERICAN COLLEGE STUDENTS: A TEST OF SOCIAL COGNITIVE CAREER THEORY(2014) Hui, Kayi; Lent, Robert W; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Although family and cultural influences in the career development of Asian Americans have been widely documented, theory-driven research on this topic remains sparse and dated. The present study examined culturally relevant factors that may contribute to Asian Americans' career considerations in the overrepresented (e.g., science, technology, engineering) and underrepresented (e.g., education, social science) professions. Drawing from social cognitive career theory (SCCT), a culture-specific, social cognitive model of career interests and choice was tested across Holland's Investigative (I) and Social (S) themes. A large, diverse sample of undergraduate Asian American students (N = 802) from a Mid-Atlantic university participated in the study. The current findings provided initial empirical support for the hypothesized culture-specific model of interest and choice for both I and S themes, and confirmed the cross-cultural validity of SCCT for this population. Social cognitive variables (family support, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and interest) accounted for a substantial amount of variance in Asian American college students' career consideration in both themes. Most of the hypothesized relations among the social cognitive variables were consistent with the theory. In addition, this study examined specific indirect and moderation effects of the culture-specific construct (adherence to Asian values) relative to the interest-choice relation. Findings highlighted the varied roles of family support and adherence to Asian values in participants' career development. For example, family support may directly encourage participants' Social career choice consideration while Asian values may promote Investigative career choice consideration in part through greater family support. Gender was also linked to choice consideration directly (I theme) as well as indirectly through self-efficacy (in both themes). Finally, multi-group invariance tests suggested that the model fit the data comparably well regardless of gender and generation group status. Hence, the model may be generalizable across the grouping variables (i.e., males and females, foreign born and U.S. born students). Together, these findings extend prior work applying SCCT to Asian American samples and may help to inform career counseling services for this population.Item Evolution of Occupational Interests in First-year College Students from 1971 to 2012(2013) Hong, Vanessa Lauren; Gottfredson, Gary D; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Since the 1970s, the roles of women and men in the workforce have evolved. Crossing traditional gender barriers in occupational choice has become more commonplace, particularly for women who have seen domestic role changes interact with professional progress. The 1971 through 2006 data for college students from the Higher Education Research Institute's The American Freshman: Forty year Trends, and The Freshman Survey annual reports from 2007 to 2012 are analyzed to determine trends in first-year college women's and men's occupational aspirations classified according to Holland's occupational types and level of complexity and to determine whether first-year college students have increasingly crossed traditional gender career barriers. The results indicate that the aspirations of female and male first-year college students follow similar trends over time, and the gap between the occupational aspirations of female and male first-year college students has decreased from 1971 to 2012, although it still exists.