The nexus among career decision self-efficacy, parental relationship factors, and career indecision among college students from different ethnic and racial groups

A review of the literature on career decision-making suggested the need for a metaperspective to integrate the constructs derived from different theories. Attachment, self-efficacy and ethnic identity theories served as the organizing framework for the investigation of career decision-making difficulties in a sample of 232 college students from different racial and ethnic backgrounds (i.e., African, Asian, Hispanic and White Americans).; In the present study, only 13% of the subjects had not considered what field they would like to major in, or what occupation they would like to choose. In addition, in the total sample, subjects reported moderate degrees of career difficulties. An evaluation of the different racial and ethnic groups reveals that Asian Americans reported significantly higher levels of career difficulties than the other groups.; One of the major goals of this study was to examine the contribution of ethnic identity, parental attachment, and career decision self-efficacy to the career difficulties of college students. Contrary to the predictions indicated by this study, ethnic identity and parental attachment did not emerge as significant predictors of career difficulties. However, there was strong support of a relationship between career decision self-efficacy and career difficulties. Furthermore, contrary to the prediction, no significant differences in career self-efficacy among the different racial and ethnic groups were found.; It was predicted that the relationship between parental attachment and career difficulties was curvilinear. However, the analysis failed to support this prediction. Furthermore, there was no evidence that parental attachment and career difficulties are linearly related in the total sample. Nonetheless, there was evidence of a linear relationship only for African Americans.; Consistent with the prediction made in the study, perceptions of discrimination were inversely related to career self-efficacy. In addition, African Americans perceived the highest levels of discrimination compared to other racial and ethnic groups.; In light of the findings in this study, the potential implications for counselors as well as policy makers are discussed. Among the limitations of the present study are the cross sectional nature of the study, and the relatively small sample sizes in some of the groups. Future studies should address these limitations.