Career Choice Motivation: Development and Approbation of a Questionnaire

Background. The relevance of career choice motivation assessment is primarily related to the need to identify adolescents who need help in choosing a profession. demonstrating a sense of uncertainty and helplessness before making such a fateful decision. Russian psychodiagnostics lacks techniques for assessing motivation in profession choosing that correspond to current theoretical approaches in the psychology of motivation. The proposed questionnaire fills this gap.

Objective. The goal was to develop and approbate a Career Choice Motivation Questionnaire based on modern theoretical and methodological developments in the self-determination theory.

Study Participants. 295 high school students (156 tenth graders and 139 eleventh graders) from a Moscow school (average age M = 16.61; SD = 0.62, 41% girls, 55% boys, the rest did not specify gender).

Methods. The introduced Career Choice Motivation Questionnaire evaluates intrinsic motivation and different types of extrinsic motivation: identified, introjected, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation (5 scales, 3 items each). To assess its validity, we utilized indicators of the subjective quality of choice, satisfaction of basic psychological needs at school and at home, academic motivation and well-being. Descriptive statistics, the Mann-Whitney test, correlation analysis, multidimensional scaling, latent profile analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis were applied to process quantitative data.

Results. An analysis of psychometric characteristics, including CFA and multidimensional scaling of the questionnaire items showed that the developed questionnaire is characterized by acceptable indicators of internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha from 0.81 to 0.87) and a clear factor structure corresponding to the motivational continuum postulated in the self-determination theory. Convincing evidence has been obtained in favor of the structural and construct validity of the questionnaire. We obtained high correlations of intrinsic and identified vocational choice motivation with self-assessment of the choice quality and satisfaction with the choice, as well as with satisfaction of basic psychological needs at home and well-being.

Conclusions. The results indicate that the developed Career Choice Motivation Questionnaire is a reliable, valid and compact tool for vocational counseling and scientific research based on the self-determination theory.

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