Students' Career exploration: a meta-analysis

Career exploration refers to the exploration of the environment and the self with the aim of gathering career-related information.

What we did:

On the basis of Lent and Brown’s (2013) model of career self-management (CSM), the current meta-analysis examined the antecedents and outcomes of career exploration among college students (K = 109, N = 34,969 students).

What we found:

We found support for the applicability of the CSM model to the context of students’ career exploration. Specifically, positive associations were found for the association of the three core person-cognitive variables self-efficacy for career exploration and decision-making (r_c = 0.52), outcome expectations (r_c = 0.31), and career-exploratory goals (r_c = 0.42) with career exploration. Results of path analyses suggest that the effects of both self-efficacy and outcome expectations on career exploration are mediated by career-exploratory goals. Further, in line with the CSM model, career exploration was positively related to career-related support (r_c = 0.33) and negatively related to barriers (r_c = − 0.15). Moreover, career exploration was associated with important career-related outcomes, such as career decidedness (r_c = 0.22), and perceived employability (r_c = 0.35). Exploratory moderator analyses revealed that some relationships are influenced by sample (i.e., age, gender, cultural background) and measurement (e.g., publication date) characteristics.

What this implies:

The findings of this meta-analysis highlight several implications for the further development of the CSM model, future research on students’ career exploration, and career development practice.

Link to published paper