John D. Krumboltz

The Happenstance Learning Theory

What-you-should-be-when-you-grow-up need not and should not be planned in advance. Instead career counselors should teach their clients the importance of engaging in a variety of interesting and beneficial activities, ascertaining their reactions, remaining alert to alternative opportunities, and learning skills for succeeding in each new activity. Four propositions: (1) The goal of career counseling is to help clients learn to take actions to achieve more satisfying career and personal lives—not to make a single career decision. (2) Assessments are used to stimulate learning, not to match personal characteristics with occupational characteristics. (3) Clients learn to engage in exploratory actions as a way of generating beneficial unplanned events. (4) The success of counseling is assessed by what the client accomplishes in the real world outside the counseling session.

The wisdom of indecision

Abstract The origins of zeteophobia, the anxiety associated with career decision making and exploration, may be in (1) the negative connotations of the term “undecided,” (2) the social pressure to make some decision—any decision, (3) the social pressure to choose prestigious occupations as goals whether or not the choice is well founded, and (4) the absence of legitimate mechanisms in our society to teach career decision-making skills. Correlational evidence among employed adults leaves in question whether career indecision is a cause or a result of job dissatisfaction. Being undecided might mean that one has adopted a profound philosophical perspective that desire itself is the source of human unhappiness. Open-mindedness can be viewed as a greater virtue than decisiveness.

Maladaptive Coping Strategies in Relation to Quality of Life Among HIV+ Adults

This study examined relationships between coping strategies and psychological quality of life (QOL) among people living with HIV/AIDS (N = 141). Participants completed baseline assessments, which included a demographic survey, the Brief COPE, the MOS-HIV, and a medical history questionnaire. Additionally, we obtained CD4 count information from medical charts. After controlling for demographic and AIDS-related factors, hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that maladaptive coping strategies used to deal with the stress of living with HIV/AIDS significantly lowers psychological quality of life as defined by cognitive functioning, mental health, and health distress. Developing adaptive coping skills to increase adaptive coping behaviors for dealing with living with HIV/AIDS may be a particularly effective intervention strategy to improve QOL. Future research must use methodological designs that can evaluate the influence of coping on QOL over time.

Counsellor Actions Needed for the New Career Perspective.

Abstract The perspective of a self-reliant ‘new career’ can be seen as a positive stimulus for career counsellors to reform their profession. Recommended actions include: (1) making life satisfaction the major goal; (2) advocating open-mindedness rather than decisiveness; (3) assuming a broad role in dealing with client concerns; (4) normalising unplanned events; (5) teaching clients to create beneficial unplanned events; and (6) using increased learning and life satisfaction as outcome measures.

Teaching a Rational Approach to Career Decision Making: Who Benefits Most?.

Abstract Who benefits most from rational decision-making training? Rational, intuitive, fatalistic, and dependent decision makers were compared on how much they learned from a rational decision-making training intervention. A Decision-Making Questionnaire was administered to 255 community college students to determine which style each used predominantly in three past career-related decisions. Subjects were randomly assigned to instruction in rational decision making or to a placebo intervention and later completed the Career Decision-Making Skills Assessment Exercise , a paper and pencil test on the application of rational decision-making principles. Individuals who had been highly impulsive, dependent, or fatalistic in prior course selections and those who exhibited dependency in prior job choices appeared to learn most from the rational training curriculum. Implications for when rational decision-making training should be prescribed are discussed.

Career Assessment as a Learning Tool

Career assessment instruments summarize the consequences of past learning experiences and have traditionally been used to match respondents with occupations and educational institutions. However, the instruments can also be used to suggest additional learning experiences needed by clients. Clients need not merely match current interests to occupations but can learn new interests. Current beliefs may not be nearly as useful as beliefs learned after a new look at the evidence. Values, traditionally sacrosanct, are similarly subject to change as the result of new learning. Personality preferences and inclinations were learned in the past and continue to be modified by daily interactions. Career counseling can thus be seen as a complex process of helping people design and implement a continuing series of learning experiences to enhance their lives.

Mentoring ethnic minority counseling and clinical psychology students: A multicultural, ecological, and relational model.

The aim of the current study was to understand the role of race and culture in successful mentoring relationships in graduate school. We examined the practices of 9 faculty mentors working with 15 ethnic minority doctoral students in counseling and clinical psychology. Grounded theory was used to discern unifying patterns and to formulate a theory of multicultural mentoring. Five overall themes significant to multicultural mentoring emerged: (a) career support and guidance tailored for ethnic minorities, (b) relationality between mentors and protégés, (c) significance of contexts, (d) interconnections across contexts, and (e) multidirectionality of interactions between contexts. The 5 themes combined to form a multicultural, ecological, and relational model of mentoring. Our findings suggest that mentoring ethnic minority students can be successful, productive, and satisfying for both mentors and protégés when mentors possess the necessary skills, time, commitment, and multicultural competencies. Implications for doctoral programs in counseling and clinical psychology are discussed, along with recommendations for future research directions.

The Comparative Effects of Inductive and Deductive Sequences in Programed Instruction

Should students be asked to induce general rules and principles from the problems they solve and the facts they receive? Or will they learn and retain more if they are given the generalizations and are asked to deduce specific applications? Empirical evidence has not supported any one consistent set of hypotheses with regard to the relative efficacy of the inductive and deductive teaching methods. Some studies reported the inductive method superior (Haslerud and Meyers, 1958; Hendrix, 1947; Kersh, 1958; Ray, 1961); others reported findings in favor of the deductive method (Craig, 1953, 1956; Fowler, 1931). Still other studies found the two methods equally effective (Forgus and Schwartz, 1957; Nichols, 1957; Sobel, 1956). In Sobels study, however, the high-IQ subjects did respond better to the inductive method; whereas neither Fowler nor Ray found a significant interaction between teaching method and intelligence. Previous experiments testing inductive versus deductive methods have not controlled two variables important in learning: (a) amount of participation by the learner, and (b) amount of information given to the learner prior to and following problem-solving activities. Characteristically, subjects in deductive groups have been passive, engaged in observing teacher presentations. Subjects in inductive groups have tended to be more active, involved in verbal or motor activities, or both, during the training periods. Thus, it has not always been clear whether it was the difference in method or the difference in activity level that produced the different outcomes. The amount of information feedback has also varied between inductive and deductive groups. Typically, more information has been given to sub-

Technologically Enriched and Boundaryless Lives Time for a Paradigm Upgrade

Computers and other communication technologies have irrevocably changed the nature of work, the workforce, and interpersonal relationships. This article suggests that these changes have resulted in a blurring of the distinction between life roles and an increase in feelings of meaningless and isolation. The authors argue that the dissolution of boundaries between life roles and the emotional sequelae of the digitization of our culture support a paradigm that reintegrates counseling and vocational psychology. Future counseling psychologists will be better equipped to provide services to clients whose lives are enriched and complicated by technology only if counseling psychology educators are able to provide them with the knowledge and skills to do so.

Career Assessment and the Career Beliefs Inventory.

The Career Beliefs Inventory (CBI; Krumboltz, 1991, 1992, 1994) is a counseling tool to identify career beliefs and assumptions that may block clients from taking constructive action. Here we answer some frequently asked questions about the CBI and illustrate with excerpts from a counseling case study. The CBI is relatively independent of other career assessment instruments. Scores on the 25 scales reflect categories of beliefs that have caused difficulties for other people in the past. A counselor can use scores to probe for particularly troublesome beliefs and to provide support and insight regarding helpful assumptions. Whether a given belief is helpful or not is a decision for the client to determine—no right or wrong beliefs are designated by the CBI itself.