Career Problem Checklist (CPC)

Abstract

The Career Problem Checklist (CPC; Lee & Lee, 2023) is a 16-item instrument designed to identify and address career challenges experienced by college students during their transition from academia to the professional world. Its content is rooted in the Cognitive Information Processing (CIP; Peterson et al., 1991) theory. The development and initial psychometric evaluation of the CPC were conducted using a sample of Korean college seniors, with reported results for factor analysis, reliability, and validity.

Keywords

Self-Awareness, Occupational Information, Job-Seeking Skills, Career Decision-Making, Career Problems, College Students, School-to-Work Transition Period, Cognitive Information Processing Theory

Authors

Lee, Janghee; Lee, Sang Min

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Purpose

The primary purpose of the Career Problem Checklist (CPC) is to identify and address career problems encountered by college students, particularly those in the school-to-work transition period.

Validity

Construct Validity: The construct validity of the CPC is supported by the results of confirmatory factor analysis, indicating that the scale effectively measures the intended theoretical constructs.

Concurrent Validity: The CPC subscales demonstrated significant positive correlations with measures of job-seeking anxiety, including job-seeking anxiety related to the environment and job-seeking anxiety related to conditions. Conversely, all CPC subscales exhibited significant negative associations with positive affect, career preparation behavior, and life satisfaction, further supporting its concurrent validity.

Reliability

Internal Consistency: The Career Problem Checklist (CPC) exhibits strong overall internal consistency with an alpha coefficient of 0.918. The four identified factors also demonstrate good internal consistency: self-awareness (alpha = 0.778), occupational information (alpha = 0.911), career decision-making (alpha = 0.879), and job-seeking skills (alpha = 0.859). These robust alpha values confirm the appropriateness of these four factors as the main components of the scale.

Factor Analysis

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA): An exploratory factor analysis was conducted, and four factors with eigenvalues equal to or greater than 1.0 were identified based on Kaiser’s Rule (Kaiser, 1960). The scree plot further supported this four-factor solution. This four-factor model was deemed appropriate as each factor satisfied the structure coefficient criteria and demonstrated acceptable internal consistency.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA): The confirmatory factor analysis results indicated that the four-factor model for the CPC demonstrated satisfactory fit. This was evidenced by favorable fit indices, including TLI and CFI values of 0.90 or above, and an RMSEA value less than 0.05. Furthermore, the analysis revealed no significant differences in factor variance based on gender or university affiliation.

Instrument: Career Problem Checklist (CPC)

Test Type: Original
Format: The CPC is a checklist where items are answered using a yes/no scale.
Language Available: Korean.
Population Group: Human (Male and Female).
Age Group: Adulthood (18 years and older).
Population Details: The sample for the initial development and evaluation consisted of college students located in South Korea.
Test Methodology: The methodology employed in the development and evaluation of the CPC included: Test Validity, Concurrent Validity, Construct Validity, Test Reliability, Internal Consistency, Factor Analysis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, and Exploratory Factor Analysis.

Keywords

Self-Awareness, Occupational Information, Job-Seeking Skills, Career Decision-Making, Career Problems, College Students, School-to-Work Transition Period, Cognitive Information Processing Theory

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Authors

Lee, Janghee

• Author ORCID Identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1311-2488

• Affiliation: Korea University, Department of Education

Lee, Sang Min

• Author ORCID Identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6148-772X

• Affiliation: Korea University, Department of Education

• Email addresses: [email protected]

• Correspondence Address: Korea University, College of Education, Department of Education, Anam-dong, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, Korea, Republic of, [email protected]

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Permissions: To obtain permissions, contact the Corresponding Author.
Fee: No data is Available
Commercial: No data is Available
Test Year: 2023

References

Lee, J., & Lee, S. M. (2023). Development and initial psychometrics of the career problem checklist. Journal of Employment Counseling, 60(3), 126–143. https://doi.org/10.1002/joec.12211

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Items of the Career Problem Checklist (CPC)

The Career Problem Checklist is a 16-item scale. The items are categorized into four subscales: Self-awareness, Occupational Information, Career Decision-making, and Job-seeking Skills. The specific items are presented in the Appendix on page 143 of the source reference.