A Psychometric Examination of the Career Construction Model of Adaptation in Working Adults and Students

The Career Construction Model of Adaptation (CCMA; Savickas and Porfeli, 2012) is a widely adopted multidimensional framework that conceptualizes career development through four interconnected dimensions: adaptivity, adaptability, adapting, and adaptation (“four As”). Despite its theoretical prominence, empirical research on the CCMA remains fragmented, with most studies focusing on individual dimensions or isolated measures rather than testing the model as a coherent latent structure. In Study 1 (N = 1,000 working adults), we applied psychometric techniques to examine the shared variances among seventeen established career-related measures aligned with the “four As.” Factor analysis supported a parsimonious four-factor model consistent with the CCMA framework, and subsequent structural path modeling with bootstrapping further supported by a serial mediation process in which adaptivity (A1) predicted adaptation (A4), both directly and indirectly via adaptability (A2) and adapting (A3). Study 2 (N = 323 university students) provided evidence of structural consistency across a sample at a different career stage, with variations attributable to early career characteristics. Our results offer one of the first integrative psychometric evaluations of the CCMA, demonstrating its viability as a multidimensional latent system. These findings contribute to ongoing efforts to clarify the empirical foundations of career construction theory and support future applications of the CCMA in research and practice.