Concept of agency in educational and career development.

The present study was designed to develop and evaluate prototypical measures of behavioral competence and perceived self-efficacy with respect to a complex domain of behavior summarized as agency in educational and career pursuits. The domain, originally suggested to be important in a previous study of career competencies in professional women (Hackett, Betz, & Doty, 1985), referred to the tendency of the individual to respond proactively to situations representing educational and career opportunities. Subjects, 109 undergraduate students, were administered measures of competence and level and strength of perceived self-efficacy in response to 18 situations with potential to elicit agentic behaviors. Results indicated that, on the average, college students gave only minimally competent responses to the situations presented, although competence varied considerably across situations. Levels of perceived efficacy were relatively high, tint the strength of (or confidence in) efficacy beliefs was relatively weak. Male and female students were similar in both agentic competence and self-efficacy. Implications for further research and for using the concept of agency as a focus of counseling interventions are discussed. Bandura (1977) and others (Bandura & Adams, 1977; Bandura, Adams, & Beyer, 1977) developed a theoretical explanation of therapeutic change in which the concept of perceived self-efficacy plays the central mediational role. The concept of perceived self-efficacy refers to beliefs concerning one's capability of successfully engaging in a target behavior; strong perceived efficacy is postulated to lead to behavioral approach, and weak efficacy to lead to avoidance. Thus, the modification of perceived self-efficacy is thought to strongly