Mark Watson

• Nelson Mandela University

Refugees represent a small and heterogeneous group in global north countries of resettlement. Refugees’ economic and social stability are key to their inclusion in the post-resettlement context, which may involve acquiring a new language and furthering their education. Career counselling, with its foundation in social justice, can assist refugees w...

Globally, environmental degradation has reached unprecedented levels. In South Africa, indigenous forests have been lost to mass land conversions under previous colonial and apartheid administrations. These changes have affected social ecologies, engendering experiences of place severing and giving rise to grass-roots community struggles in respons...

Place attachments are essential for community identity, yet little is understood about sacred natural sites' salience to these attachments. A network of sacred natural sites, also known as Zwifho, is located across the Vhembe District in South Africa's Limpopo province. This qualitative case study explores and describes community members' relations...

Extractive industries have a deleterious impact on social ecologies. Mining is one of South Africa's main industries, and communities' resistance takes place in these extractive zones. This qualitative case study aims to explore and describe mine-affected community members' psychological reactions and community responses to land and environmental i...

This paper applies the Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF) to a case study on climate-related distress in South Africa. In doing so, the paper critiques the current conceptualisation of climate anxieties for its potential medicalisation and dehistorisation, and illustrates the importance of asymmetrical power dynamics and climate-related distress...

This research investigated whether creativity and career assessment are a contradiction in terms or whether, through creative thinking, their potential complementarity in career guidance and counselling can be realised. The research demonstrates the creative application of the systemic Integrative Structured Interview (ISI) for the Self-Directed Se...

Since its inception, the Systems Theory Framework of career development has afforded ready translation into practice, especially into career counselling and qualitative career assessment. Through its clearly articulated constructs and the clarity of its diagrammatic representation, the Systems Theory Framework has facilitated the development of qua...

Herein, the contributions to this special issue and positions the field of child career development in terms of its past, present, and future are considered. There is an initial brief overview of past developments in the field, specifically as described in seminal reviews. The article then considers the present status of and future agenda for the f...

Career aspirations developed in childhood may impact on future career development in adolescence and adulthood. Family is an important context in which children develop their career aspirations. This study examined how parents influence children’s career aspirations in mainland China from both the parents’ and children’s perspectives. Eight fifth-g...

Compared with adolescents and adults, there is little research that examines child career development and especially how parents might influence such development. This is especially true in Mainland China, where family life is highly valued. This study used interpretative phenomenological analysis to examine how Mainland Chinese parents influence t...

Orientation: Self-efficacy beliefs, given their task-specific nature, are likely to influence managers’ perceived decision-making competence depending on fluctuations in their nature and strength as non-ability contributors. Research purpose: The present research describes the conceptualisation, design and measurement of managerial decision-making...

INTRODUCTION There is a history to career assessment spanning over a century that is generally recognised as commencing with the foundational writing of Frank Parsons (1909) at the beginning of the last century. The present chapter explores how career assessment has evolved in both its quantitative and qualitative forms within career theory and car...

INTRODUCTION In 2006, McMahon and Patton suggested that the story of qualitative career assessment “may have been largely silenced or overshadowed” (p. 163) in the field of career assessment by the dominant story of quantitative career assessment. In 2008, McMahon expressed the hope that “the 21st century will see a rising profile for qualitative c...

INTRODUCTION My System of Career Influences (MSCI) is a qualitative guided reflection process for adolescents and for adults that is based on the Systems Theory Framework (STF; McMahon & Patton, 1995; Patton & McMahon, 1999, 2006, 2014) of career development. Reflective of the trend towards more holistic theories and models of career counselling, t...

INTRODUCTION The history of career assessment and the dominant role of quantitative career assessment in that history have been described in several chapters of this book. Integral to this discussion of career assessment are two potentially conflicting perspectives. The one is evident in the prevailing emphasis on quantitative career assessment tha...

Career Assessment: Qualitative Approaches will assume a seminal place in the field of career development as the first book to focus solely on qualitative approaches to career assessment. This book represents a timely and important contribution to career development as it seeks to meet the needs of increasingly diverse client groups. Part 1, Foundat...

Career development in adolescence and adulthood has been widely researched; however, less is known about childhood career development, particularly in non-Western cultures. This is especially the case in mainland China, where children grow up in a unique context. The Confucian tradition of emphasizing education as an important social ladder and par...

Institutionalised discrimination continues to perpetuate deep rooted social divisions, with gender inequality persisting as a pervasive feature of labour markets across the world. Despite the depth and breadth of gender inequality, there is limited acknowledgement in career theory that the career support needs of women are distinctive. A qualitativ...

The focus of this chapter is on context-resonant systems perspectives in career theory and their implications for practice in diverse cultural and contextual settings. For over two decades, the potential of systems theory to offer a context-resonant approach to career development has been acknowledged. Career development theory and practice, howeve...

The use of quantitative career assessment in career counseling has been challenged and debated for over half a century. Integral to this debate have been questions about the relevance of traditional quantitative assessment and Western approaches to career counseling to countries and cultures beyond those in which they were developed. Recently, as n...

Despite some progress being made towards gender equality, a pervasive feature of labor markets across the world is that women continue to suffer disadvantage in multiple areas of their lives. In particular, women’s career pathways are constrained by systemic disadvantage, yet there is limited acknowledgement in traditional career theory that the ca...

As work and employment transitions become more frequent and difficult, the demand for formal career guidance increases. Women are likely to experience structural labour market disadvantage and may benefit from formal support that is sympathetic to their particular needs. Yet the traditional psychological paradigms that dominate career guidance prac...

Career guidance clients are seeking to craft new identities that better position them in their careers. The focus of the present article is on narrative career counselling's potential contribution in providing a meaningful and useful experience for career guidance clients. To illustrate the potential of narrative career counselling, the story telli...

Emily was in her mid-fifties, married with two adult children. After completing school, Emily accepted a cadetship to work while studying in a technical field. Emily found the work quite interesting, but she dropped out of the formal study component because she felt she had no aptitude for it.

In the field of career development, there is an acknowledged relationship between career assessment and career counseling. Traditional career assessment and more recent narrative approaches to career counseling are perceived as having an uneasy relationship because of their different philosophical bases. A sustainable future story for the field cou...

Narrative career counselling is a growing force in career guidance and counselling that offers a direction for the field to respond to the needs of increasingly diverse client groups. In this article, we review established and emerging approaches to narrative career counselling, then focus on the emerging story telling approach. We offer examples o...

This article reports on an international qualitative study investigating career pathways through the stories of transition and adaptability of older women. Informed by grounded theory, the study explored how this group of women coped with and adapted to changes and transitions related to career. Data were gathered by means of interviews with 36 old...

The present article examines how the five process constructs of reflection, connectedness, meaning making, learning and agency are operationalised in a constructivist approach to career counselling, specifically a storytelling approach. This article reports on an exploratory case study of a Black South African female university student. The case st...

Globalisation has progressed at a rapid rate as a result of advances in technology, mass media and transport. Career development has expanded its sphere of influence to countries and cultures beyond its western origins. In recent years, much debate in the field of career development has focused on revisioning and repositioning itself as a relevant...

Globalisation has irreversibly changed the world of work in the 21st century. Yet most career development theories and practices originate from a tradition developed in the early part of the 20th century. Global challenges are emerging which confront the discipline of career psychology. Workers are relocating between countries; large corporations a...

OVERVIEW. One of the most important challenges facing the career counseling profession is developing effective strategies to counsel racially diverse individuals. Understanding the role of racial factors in career counseling requires an understanding of the impact of race on the development and identification of career concerns (Leong & Hartung, 19...

There has been limited international and South African research on the career development of rural and socioeconomically disadvantaged children. The present research provides baseline Information on the career development of rural, low socioeconomic status, Black upper elementary school children (N = 292; 154 girls and 138 boys) in relation to thei...

Constructivism is a relatively recent concept to re-emerge in the career literature. This chapter explores how career theory has evolved over the last century and how constructivism has emerged as part of that history. The need for career counselling to consider the premises of constructivism is explored and reasons for a change towards a career co...

Constructivist approaches to career counselling have been gaining momentum as a way of practice in the 21st century. The purpose of this chapter is to consider the content of the previous chapters and to reflect on themes and points of difference across the chapters. Such a process provides an opportunity to consider the present position of constru...

This chapter considers the increasing use of narrative and storied approaches in career counselling resulting from the influence of constructivism. Stories are integral to the way people live their lives. People make sense of their lives and construct their identities through stories. As career counsellors, we listen to the stories of others, inter...

This paper explores the definition of social justice in career psychology and how this might be understood in the South African context. In particular, macro-contextual factors that define social justice issues in South African career psychology are described. The extent to which the discipline of career psychology in South Africa has addressed and...

This paper considers womens career development and the potential contribution of career development theory, research, practice and policy in advancing a social inclusion agenda. In particular, the paper focuses on older women in the contexts of an ageing population, labour market shortages and Australias social inclusion agenda. Supporting young pe...

There has been a call for a more systematic research focus on the career development of children from diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, with the viewpoint that childrens career development research needs to be contextually grounded in the countries and cultures where such development occurs. This article describes the occupational aspir...

International and South African debate on the future direction of career psychology has suggested a movement towards qualitative, narrative and storied approaches that are informed by the constructivist worldview. The My System of Career Influences (MSCI) reflection process is a qualitative career assessment tool developed in South Africa and Austr...

This summative article discusses 5 invited contributions on children's career development. The authors of these articles were asked to consider the status quo of children's career development, issues facing this field, and future directions. Several emergent themes focused on theory, research, and practice and their interactive potential in childre...

The disparate nature of children's career development literature at present (Watson & McMahon, 2004) reinforces the need to revisit Gysbers's (1996) challenges in order to create a more comprehensive understanding of the career development of children, both intra- and interdevelopmentally.

A challenge for career theory informed by constructivism is how to apply it in practice. This article describes a career counseling intervention based on the constructivist Systems Theory Framework (STF) of career development and the qualitative career assessment instrument derived from it, the My System of Career Influences (MSCI; M. McMahon, W. P...

The Xhosa-speaking people of South Africa have a saying, xa umculo utshintsho nomduda uyatshintsha, which means that when the music changes so does the dance. The saying provides an appropriate metaphor for describing the development of the construct of career maturity and its assessment since its introduction over 50 years ago (Super, 1955). This...

Adolescent career development has predominantly been studied in the context of middle class Eurocentric cultures and there have been calls for greater attention to the career development of non-dominant and disadvantaged groups. Further, there have been calls to explore career development in terms of its context and process. In this regard, the nee...

Career psychology has witnessed a shift from approaches informed by tenets of the modern world to include approaches informed by the post-modern world as it strives to remain relevant. This shift is most evident in career theory and practice where developments reflect the influence of constructivism, but it is less evident in career research which...

This study aimed to explore psychologists' emotional stress levels, as manifested in anxiety and depression, their coping strategies, and the relationship between stress and coping strategies. A stratified random sample of 238 South African clinical and counselling psychologists completed internet surveys that included a biographical questionnaire,...

This exploratory-descriptive research focuses on whether children can connect school-based experiences to future jobs that interest them. A cross-national sample of 497 South African and 365 Australian upper primary school children participated in the study. The data from one item of the Revised Career Awareness Survey were analysed using descripti...

Since its first publication more than 15 years ago, the Systems Theory Framework (STF) has become an established metatheoretical framework in the international career development literature. Ten years into its history, the first review of its development was published. The present article overviews the expansion of the STF literature since that ini...

Holland believes that specific personality types seek out matching occupational environments and his theory codes personality and environment according to a six letter interest typology. Since 1985 there have been numerous American studies that have queried the validity of Holland's coding system. Research in South Africa is scarcer, despite critic...

Cet article décrit une analyse SWOT de la profession de psychologue du counseling en Afrique du Sud. Deux sources d’information constituent la base de cette investigation: une revue de la littérature sur la profession et l’analyse thématique d’une enquête réalisée auprès de psychologues du counseling pratiquants ou en formation. Il apparaît que cet...

The present article explores major challenges facing career psychology, specifically within the field of career education. Several issues are identified including the need for more effective links between theory and practice, the movement towards constructivist theories and the related challenges of applying such theories. These issues are explored...

The most fundamental challenge that career psychology faces is the construction of a new identity that will challenge the career theories and counselling practices that have occupied centre stage in evolving forms for over a century. As part of that challenge, career practitioners and career educators need to address the critical question of what c...

In recent years, career theory and practice has been challenged to revise and reinvigorate itself in order to remain relevant in the post- modern world. The most fundamental challenge is to produce an identity for career practice that is congruent with the post-modern world. Career research is facing a similar challenge as it has been dominated by...

Most research on professional women has focused on their stress experience as opposed to their coping and adjustment. In addition, there is a paucity of South African research on coping in general, and on coping and adjustment among medical professional women in particular. This study accordingly investigated the biopsychosocial coping and adjustme...

Recent advances in career theory have resulted in widespread acceptance of the lifespan perspective on development. However, a review of research and practice conducted during 2001 revealed that little attention has been paid to the career development of children (Whiston & Brecheisen, 2002). In response to calls for a greater concentration on this...

The authors present an overview of the discussion and presentations that took place concerning techniques and assessment in educational and vocational guidance at the recent symposium International Perspectives on Career Development. Two topics were examined. The 1st focused on the theoretical foundations of and psychometric issues in career assess...

The present exploratory-descriptive cross-national study focuses on what information children believe they need to find out about jobs. In total, 511 South African and 372 Australian children participated in the study. The present paper reports on the findings related to one item of the Revised Career Awareness Survey used in the study. Data were a...

One of the challenges clearly arising for career educators and career counsellors at the beginning of the 21st century centres on "what our theory base should be" (Watson & Stead, 2002, 29). Career practice is culturally and historically located, and to date the tenets of modernism prevail as the dominant story in the field. Influenced by postmoder...

The present exploratory-descriptive cross-national study focuses on what information children believe they need to find out about jobs. In total, 511 South African and 372 Australian children participated in the study. The present paper reports on the findings related to one item of the Revised Career Awareness Survey used in the study. Data were a...

This article suggests a re-consideration of the way in which postmodern career counselling and theory could position counsellors in relation to their clients. It also poses ethical challenges and questions to developing career counsellors and their established educators. More specifically, the article explores the ethical dilemmas confronting postg...

This article reports on the development of a qualitative career assessment activity, the My System of Career Influences (MSCI) Reflection Activity. The article describes the process of developing and testing the instrument. The testing was conducted in two stages with adults and adolescents. Findings from Stage 1 indicate that the MSCI (pilot versi...

The present exploratory-descriptive cross-national study focused on the career development of 11- to 14-yr.-old children, in particular whether they can match their personal characteristics with their occupational aspirations. Further, the study explored whether their matching may be explained in terms of a fit between person and environment using...

Career development is regarded as a lifespan process; however, the career development of children has received little theoretical and research attention. This article reflects on the breadth and depth of understandings about children's career development from the metatheoretical perspective of the Systems Theory Framework of career development. The...

The Systems Theory Framework (STF) of career development represents a metatheoretical account of career development that is consistent with the constructivist worldview. Presented as a framework of influences, the STF clearly illustrates the content and process of career development. The STF has provided the stimulus for the development of a qualit...

Both internationally and within South Africa the failure rates at universities are presently high and throughput and graduation rates are low. It is thus imperative that the cognitive and non‐cognitive predictors related to identifying learners who will succeed academically are explored. This paper focuses on two potentially important non‐cognitive...

Social cognitive career theory suggests that males and females may not differ in career decision-making self-efficacy, but this statement requires extension of research to high school samples. The Career Decision-making Self-efficacy Scale-Short Form was administered to white South African high school students in Grades 9 to 11, of whom 368 were bo...

The present study investigates the career maturity of 1090 high school students in Years 8 to 12 in Australia (n = 656) and South Africa (n = 434). Scores on the Australian version of the "Career Development Inventory" were analysed. While a developmental explanation for career maturity was supported, gender differences between countries and differ...

Previous research has revealed inconsistencies in the interaction of perceived career barriers, career development variables, and demographic variables such as gender and cultural identity. This study sought to investigate such relationships by surveying 1063 secondary students from Australia and South Africa in order to explore their work related...

Assessment has been integral to career counselling since the early 1900s. During that time, the greatest amount of attention was focused on quantitative assessment. Thus, there is till very little to guide the development and conduct of qualitative assessment in career counselling. The authors present an overview of qualitative assessment and its t...

The influence of contextual factors on the career decision states of 429 South African and 623 Australian male and female students in grades 8 to 12 was investigated. The results for both national samples on the Career Decision Scale demonstrate that grade, gender, and the interaction of grade and gender impact on the developmental progression of c...

The present study examined the reliability, content, and construct validity, and cultural equivalence of the short form of the Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Scale-Short Form (CDMSE-SF). In response to calls to conduct studies using the measure with high school–age samples, data were gathered from two samples of high school students, one from...

This article provides a framework for a moral consideration of career research and practice in South Africa. The status quo of South African career research and practice is overviewed and some initial questions are suggested in terms of the present and future direction of career psychology in South Africa.

There is a need for South African researchers to explore the potential utility of career decision-making self-efficacy in understanding the career behaviour of tertiary students. Given the lack of standardised measures for this construct, the responses of 364 South African university students to the Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Scale : Shor...

The Department of Computer Science and Information Systems at the University of Port Elizabeth (UPE) has researched factors that predict success in first year Computer Science and Information Systems (CS/IS) courses at UPE for a number of years. Researchers have recently developed a computerised selection battery that could be used for the selectio...

The career decisiveness of postsecondary South African students in vocational education (N=1062) were assessed. Analysis indicated that White students were more decisive about careers than Asian and Black students in the first year. rile implications of this finding for postsecondary education in South Africa are discussed.

John Holland's career theory has influenced career counselling for several decades. However, recent research has questioned the cross-cultural and gender structural equivalence of his theory. The present research examines whether 529 black South African disadvantaged students’ interest structures fit Holland's hexagonal model and whether such struc...

This paper describes and critically examines aspects of career research in South Africa from 1980 to 1997. The research is grouped into four categories, theory, theoretical constructs, career counseling and education, and career assessment. Suggestions are provided on the directions South African career research should take. Copyright 1998 Academic...

The appropriateness of Super's career theory among black South Africans is discussed in terms of developmental stages, the self-concept, career maturity, and career decision-making. Suggestions are provided as to how these constructs may need to be re-evaluated and thus become more meaningful to career counsellors and researchers.

Black South African high school students (N = 523) were questioned about their attitudes and motivation towards studying. Analysis indicated that the students expressed negative attitudes toward studying and were concerned about failing. 34% indicated a lack of interest in most school subject matter.

The present study examines the relationship between commitment to the career choice process and the career maturity of 123 White first year psychology students. The results indicate a statistically highly significant relationship (�? < 0,01) between career maturity and the Vocational Exploration and Commitment subscale of Blustein et al.'s (1989) C...

The present study provides a description of the occupational aspirations of 216 black high school students in a special program by the amount of training required (status) and Holland's 1973 typology as well as by gender, age, socioeconomic status, knowledge of self, and occupational knowledge. Analysis indicates that most adolescents aspire to Soc...

Information Technology (IT) personnel are faced with rapid technological and organisational change, an increased global market place with a resultant organisation restructuring that is having a profound effect on the IT environment. IT persomiel have always been required to keep their technological skills current. During the last two decades additi...

This study investigates the possible influence of gender and culture on the career maturity and study and work role salience of South African students. Responses to the Life Role Inventory and Career Development Questionnaire of 260 first-year university students (137 white, 123 black) were analyzed. Culture was found to have a significant effect o...

Comments on A. Naicker's (see record 1995-11542-001) argument for the adoption of a psychosocial approach to career counseling in South African schools. Naicker should consider those theoretical developments that emphasize the dynamic, continuous interaction between the individual and the environment, such as those of D. E. Super (1990) and L. S....

A Longitudinal study of the developmental nature of career decidedness and the relation of grade, socioeconomic status, and gender to such decidedness was undertaken on a sample of 214 white South African high school students. The results of the study support a developmental progression toward greater career decidedness for all students except thos...

The responses of South African university students (N=303) to the Commitment to Career Choices Scale are analyzed by means of a confirmatory factor analysis as suggested by Ellis and Blustein in 1992. The results provide support for the 1992 findings of Stead and Watson

The Career Myths Scale (CMS) was developed to assess the extent to which students subscribe to irrational beliefs regarding careers. The CMS was administered to a sample of university students (n=153) and a principal components analysis of the CMS identified the following components: Test Myths, Self-Esteem Myths, Misconceptions of Exactitude, and...

This study examined the relation between career indecision and irrational beliefs. One hundred and fifty-three black undergraduate students completed the Career Decision Scale (CDS) and two measures of irrational beliefs: the Idea Inventory (IINV) and the Career Myths Scale (CMS). The results indicated that the CDS was significantly related to the...

A sample of 332 undergraduate psychology students completed the Career Decision Scale (CDS), the Career Factors Inventory (CFI), and the Career Decision Profile (CDP). Factor analyses were conducted and four stable factors emerged, namely: Indecision, Need for Self/Career Information, Career Choice Anxiety, and Indecisiveness. The CDP and the CFI b...

A factor analytic study of the Career Decision Scale-High School version of Hartman and Hartman on 312 white South African adolescents from Grades 11 and 12 was undertaken. A simple two-factor structure emerged which accounted for 47.36% of the total variance in the scores. These results support the use of the version as a differential measure of c...

A study of the relationship of grade, sex, socioeconomic status, and language group to the work-role salience of 1467 white South African adolescents from Grades 8 to 12 was undertaken. There were no significant interaction effects for students' scores on Greenhaus' (1973) Work-Role Salience Scale but there were significant main effects for grade,...