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.

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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Predicting Undergraduate Music Majors’ Academic Adjustment and Persistence Intentions
    (2021) Cygrymus, Emily Rose; Lent, Robert W; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The vocational/counseling psychology literature has devoted limited attention to factors thatpromote or hinder the career development of musicians. To address this gap, the current study adopted social cognitive career theory (SCCT) as a framework to examine the experiences of musicians at a formative point in their development – the first few years of college, during which many would-be musicians either confirm or abandon their career plans. This study combines features of SCCT’s well-being and choice models to explore social cognitive and personality factors that might predict satisfaction with, and intended persistence in, undergraduate music majors. In the current study, I tested a number of the models’ central predictions in the context of music major education. In particular, I hypothesized that academic adjustment, as indexed by academic domain satisfaction and stress, would be predicted by favorable levels of music major- relevant self-efficacy, outcome expectations, social support, goal progress, and trait affect. I also hypothesized that academic adjustment would, in turn, predict intentions to persist in the music curriculum beyond the first two years of college. In addition to their indirect links through satisfaction, self-efficacy and outcome expectations were posited to produce direct links to persistence intentions. Participants were 260 first- and second-year undergraduate music majors. The hypothesized model produced excellent fit to the data and accounted well for variation in both music major satisfaction and persistence intentions. With a few exceptions (e.g., a non- significant direct path from outcome expectations to persistence intentions), most of the path coefficients were statistically significant and in the expected direction. These findings suggest that this adaptation of the SCCT well-being and choice models offers a useful framework from which to study the academic satisfaction and persistence intentions of music majors.
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    RETIREMENT PLANNING FROM A CAREER SELF-MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE: A TEST OF SOCIAL COGNITIVE CAREER THEORY
    (2019) Penn, Lee Thomas; Lent, Robert W; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Although the retirement transition is a complex and multifaceted process for older workers, much of the existing research only examines retirement from a financial or “encore career” perspective (i.e., work after retirement, which represents only one of several possible retirement lifestyles). As the baby boomer generation nears retirement age, a more comprehensive understanding of retirement is needed to improve successful planning for this transition. The career self-management model of social cognitive career theory was used as the conceptual base for the current study. Based on this model, five new social cognitive measures of retirement planning (self- efficacy, outcome expectations, supports, anxiety, and decidedness) and a revised goal measure were developed and administered to 525 older workers anticipating retirement in the near future. Data from the first 200 participants in the sample were subjected to exploratory factor analysis and other analyses to estimate their reliability and validity. Data from the remaining 325 participants were then subjected to confirmatory analysis and to path analyses to predict retirement planning anxiety, decidedness, and goals. The data provided good overall fit to the career self- management model, and support was found for most, though not all, predicted paths in the model. Implications of the findings for the career self-management model, as well as for future research and practice directions, are considered.
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    Learning Experiences in Career Exploration and Decision-Making: A Test of the Career Self-Management Model
    (2017) Ireland, Glenn Walter; Lent, Robert W; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The proposed study had two objectives. First, it refined a recently developed measure of five types of learning experiences that, according to social cognitive career theory (SCCT; Lent & Brown, 2013), inform self-efficacy and outcome expectations in the domain of career exploration and decision-making. Second, it used the new measure to test hypotheses that (a) career exploration and decision-making learning experiences predicted both career decision self-efficacy and outcome expectations, and (b) these learning experiences related to career exploration goals indirectly via self-efficacy and outcome expectations. Data were collected via an online survey from 215 college students in introductory psychology courses. Hypothesized relationships among the learning experiences, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and goals were tested using hierarchical linear regression. Non-parametric bootstrapping was used to test mediation (indirect effects) hypotheses.
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    Social Cognitive and Self-Construal Predictors of Academic Satisfaction among African Students Attending U.S. Universities
    (2013) Ezeofor, Ijeoma; Lent, Robert W; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The purpose of this study was to examine select sociocognitive, environmental, and cultural factors that may relate to African students' academic satisfaction. The Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) satisfaction model (Lent, 2004) was used as a framework to test the predictive utility of these factors with students of African descent. The study also examined self-construal as a predictor of academic satisfaction. Self-construal is the way one's thoughts, behaviors, and feelings are guided by one's relationship to self and others (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). The present study revealed that the factors of the satisfaction model accounted for 59% of the variance in academic satisfaction in the African sample. The findings also suggested that self-construal does not influence academic satisfaction directly but rather operates through mediated pathways. Research and practical implications of the findings are discussed.