Multivariate Generalizability Analysis of Three Measures of Career Indecision

A persons x occasions multivariate generalizability analysis was done separately for males (n = 90) and females (n = 173) by using the Career Decision Scale (Osipow, 1980), My Vocational Situation (Holland, Draiger, and Power, 1980), and the Vocational Decision Scale (Jones, 1977). The estimated variance components for persons tended to be larger for females than for males and largest, regardless of sex, for the My Vocational Situation scale. The non-zero variance components for the occasions facet indicated that error variance attributable to total score instability across testing occasions was present for all three scales to about the same degree. The non-zero covariances for the occasions facet indicated that the occasion on which higher total scores were obtained on one scale was likely to be the same occasion on which higher scores were obtained on the other two scales. That this covarying was more apparent for males than for females suggested that males may perceive career indecision as a general concern by rating all three measures according to their judgment of that general level of indecision. On the other hand, females in comparison with males apparently viewed indecision more multidimensionally in terms of making finer discriminations between scale content, a circumstance resulting in more independence between scale responses.