Abstract
This quasi-experimental investigation tested whether adding a sociopolitical development (SPD) component to a social cognitive career theory–based (SCCT) career intervention program, Project health-care opportunities, preparation, and exploration (HOPE), was more effective than an SCCT-only intervention among a group of eighth-grade students (n = 94). Results of the study indicated both intervention conditions were associated with increases in health-care career (HC) and math/science (MS) interests among the participants. Results also demonstrated that gains in HC interests (HCIs) were associated with intervention conditions: students in the SCCT + SPD condition only reported statistically significant gains in HCIs. The study found no statistically significant interaction effects between ethnicity and condition on any of the outcome variables. Results suggest limited support for the effectiveness of SPD-infused SCCT interventions and that more research is needed to better understand how rural students can benefit from SCCT/SPD-based career interventions.
Keywords
New immigration to rural communities is vastly changing the picture of rural America. No place is more notable than in the Midwest where the foreign-born population growth has negated the population loss of native-born residents and in some cases doubled the population of rural towns (Pew Charitable Trust, 2014). While rural communities are enriched by the shifting demographics, there is evidence to suggest that contextual factors within rural communities directly influence the career development of both immigrant and nonimmigrant youth, and these youth are in need of career programming (Snyder, McLaughlin, & Coleman-Jensen, 2009). Contextual factors such as lack of employment opportunities and economic conditions are particularly salient to rural youth, as rural communities across the United States are generally poorer than urban communities, and those who reside in rural communities are more likely to be unemployed or underemployed (National Rural Health Association, 2012). Data also show that only 18% of working-age adults hold 4-year degrees in rural areas as compared to 32% for those living in urban areas (Kusmin, 2014). This suggests that youth who may wish to stay in rural communities may be at a disadvantage for opportunities due to the educational, economic, and employment challenges present in their hometowns.
Career intervention programs for rural students may provide an important resource, especially when tied to sociopolitical realities and community issues. While addressing sociopolitical realities (e.g., poverty, discrimination, community needs) within career interventions may be challenging, the career intervention literature can serve as a guide in developing such interventions. More specifically, meta-analytics studies (e.g., Brown & Krane, 2000; Whiston, 2002) have identified components of career programs that have demonstrated effectiveness within the literature. Further, theoretical advancements within the career literature serve as both a way to develop sociopolitically driven rural career interventions and to measure their effectiveness. More specifically, social cognitive career theory (SCCT; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994, 2000) offers a promising framework for developing and studying the effects of career programming for rural youth because it is contextually driven, flexible, and provides a framework for integrating sociopolitical issues.
Currently, there is no empirical literature that integrates sociopolitical development (SPD) and SCCT-based career interventions for rural youth. Further, there have been no attempts to examine whether SCCT-based interventions that attend to SPD are more effective than standard SCCT-based interventions in promoting the career development of rural youth. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to test quasi-experimentally whether adding a SPD component to an SCCT-based career intervention program, Project health-care opportunities, preparation, and exploration (HOPE; Ali, 2013; Ali, Brown, & Loh, 2017), was more effective than an SCCT-only intervention in enhancing rural students’ career development process.
SCCT and SPD
Over the past two decades, SCCT (Lent et al., 1994) has been used to explain the career development of diverse groups. SCCT offers a unique perspective that integrates person inputs (e.g., sex, gender, race, and ethnicity) and background contextual affordances (e.g., environmental issues) into the career decision-making process (Lent et al., 1994). More specifically, person inputs and background contextual affordances are noted to influence individuals’ learning experiences, which are directly and indirectly related to career self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and goals (Lent et al., 1994, 2000). Further, SCCT draws upon the principles of social constructivism to address how individuals perceive and cope with barriers to career and employment such as racism, sexism, homophobia, structural opportunity, and economic inequalities. Within SCCT, Lent, Brown, and Hackett (1994) recognize the importance of contextual variables (i.e., economic conditions) in the career choice process but emphasize that both actual environment circumstances and cognitive appraisal of these circumstances work together to influence career choice behaviors. Because SCCT focuses both on personal agency and environmental conditions, it is the ideal theory to frame interventions that incorporate concepts of SPD, defined here “as an orientation toward social justice, a motivation to transform sociopolitical inequity in one’s environment, and the development of a healthy sense of self and feeling empowered to exercise one’s agency in the context of structural oppression” (Diemer, Hsieh, & Pan, 2009, p. 318).
Chronister and McWhirter (2006) incorporated sociopolitical considerations into an SCCT-based career intervention for battered women, providing a good example of integrating and evaluating SPD-informed career programming. In a focused reanalysis of the results of this study, Brown (2015) found that the career intervention program that included elements of empowerment for self-protection and awareness of the consequences of domestic violence was more effective in promoting critical consciousness related to career and work than a standard condition which did not include these components. The results suggested addressing structural inequalities and the consequences of domestic violence could serve to enhance the career development of women who have experienced domestic violence.
The integration of SPD into SCCT-based career interventions may be especially important to promote rural underserved youths’ interest in pursuing careers (Diemer et al., 2010). Focusing on underserved youths’ background contextual affordances through the SPD lens may be a productive way to improve their vocational experiences because of the recognition of sociopolitical barriers and how to overcome them. As noted in Diemer and Blustein’s (2006) study of urban youth, those with higher levels of critical consciousness and SPD were more likely to view work as important in their futures and have a stronger sense of vocational identity. Similarly, in Diemer and Hsieh (2008) and Diemer et al. (2010), SPD was related to higher vocational expectations and work salience for minority youth from lower SES backgrounds.
Given these findings, Diemer and Hsieh (2008) recommended the integration of SPD into career interventions for minority youth and youth from lower SES backgrounds in order to enhance occupational expectations. The authors noted that it may be beneficial for career interventions to focus on increasing adolescents’ motivation to help others in their community, encouraging adolescents to be active members of the community, and helping them gain insight into current sociopolitical realities (Diemer & Hsieh, 2008). Brown and Lent (2016) propose that sociopolitically informed career interventions may be an important way to increase school engagement and occupational attainment. Specifically, they suggest that increasing SPD may help students to more effectively overcome challenges and increase their educational and occupational achievement (Brown & Lent, 2016).
Rural Youth Career Development
Research suggests that rural youth face challenges to their career development, especially in terms of community commitment and postsecondary aspirations (Ali & McWhirter, 2006; Ali & Saunders, 2009; Petrin, Schafft, & Meece, 2014). For example, Petrin, Schafft and Meece (2014) investigated issues related to the outmigration of the “best and brightest” youth from rural areas. Using data from a national multimethod study, they found that the highest achieving rural students have the greatest community attachment but that student perceptions of local economic conditions were influential in shaping postsecondary residential aspirations. Similarly, Hutchins, Meece, Byun, and Farmer (2012) found that rural work-bound youth were more likely to report greater family economic hardship, lower parental expectations for completing college, and more negative schooling experiences than college-bound rural youth. Additionally, Ali and Menke (2014) found that rural Latinx students reported higher vocational self-efficacy beliefs but also perceived more barriers to postsecondary education than White students.
In a policy report by the Carsey Institute, Snyder, McLaughlin, and Coleman-Jensen (2009) suggest that positive development, including career development, is not only critical to the success of rural youth but also to the revitalization of rural communities. They suggest that career programming should focus on helping rural youth identify suitable educational and career goals, with particular emphasis on occupations that are in need within the community. Specifically, the policy report addressed the importance of involving rural community members in these efforts, with an emphasis on helping youth attend college and return to rural communities to help rejuvenate these communities. This could serve to help students with high degrees of community attachment and could help prevent “brain drain” from rural areas.
As more research has emerged on the career development needs of rural underserved students, it becomes clear that career interventions are warranted. A nuanced approach to career programming that addresses the sociopolitical realities of rural environments and helps students plan for careers that are in high demand in their rural environments is needed. The National Rural Health Association (NRHA, 2006) described the high demand for health professionals in rural areas, stating that “health professions are significant economic drivers and recruiting rural youth to health professional careers is a long-term economic investment. Healthcare professionals most likely to live and work in rural areas include those individuals who originate from rural areas” (p. 5). Therefore, the NRHA (2006) suggests that effective health-care career (HC) programming will depend on several factors including increasing the availability of educational and informational opportunities, as well as addressing the sociopolitical issues that students face in their career development. Further, these programmatic activities need to be tied directly to MS achievement, given how critical MS are to success in HC fields (Ali et al., 2017).
The Present Study
The purpose of the current study was to use a quasi-experimental design to test whether the sociopolitical condition of an SCCT-based HC intervention program, Project HOPE (Ali, 2013; Ali et al., 2017), was more effective than the SCCT-only version in increasing sociocognitive beliefs of diverse rural eighth-grade students. Additionally, we will explore the following research question to better understand the impact of the intervention for different ethnic groups: Do students report differences on the outcome variables depending on condition and ethnicity? This research question is based on several calls by researchers (e.g., Whiston, 2002) to better understand how career intervention programming works for different groups. Based on the literature and previous studies, the following hypotheses were tested: All participants, regardless of the condition (SPD + SCCT or SCCT only) or ethnic background, will report statistically significant gains of health science and MS self-efficacy (MSSE) beliefs, outcome expectations, and interests from pretest to posttest. Participants in the SPD + SCCT condition will report greater gains of health science and MSSE beliefs, outcome expectations, and interests at posttest than those in the SCCT-only condition. When compared to the SCCT-only condition, ethnic minority participants in the SPD + SCCT condition will report greater gains of health science and MSSE beliefs, outcome expectations, and interests from pretest to posttest.
Method
Participants
The initial participants in the career program were 94 eighth-grade students enrolled in four career classes in a Midwest rural middle school. Of the participants, three participants did not participate in either the pretest survey or the posttest survey, yielding 91 participants’ responses suitable for analysis. The final sample consisted of 51 females (56.0%) and 40 males (44.0%), ranging from 13 to 14 years old (M = 13.26, SD = .51). For the purposes of this study, participants who were identified as non-White were grouped as ethnic minority students. Participants identified their ethnicity as follows: 36 White (39.6%) and 55 non-White (60.4%) including 43 indicating their ethnicity as Latinx, 2 Asian American, 9 biracial/multiracial, and 1 “Other.”
Measures
HC task self-efficacy (HCTSE)
The HCTSE Scale measures students’ self-efficacy beliefs about performing tasks related to HCs (Ali et al., 2018). The HCTSE is an 11-item self-report instrument on a 6-point Likert-type scale (1 = very unconfident, 6 = very confident). Total scores were used for analyses, with higher scores representing higher health care–related task self-efficacy beliefs. Example items include: “Identify possible illnesses from a list of symptoms” and “Gather information to help me form a hypothesis.” Ali et al. (2018) reported evidence of convergent validity (correlation of .60) with the MSSE Scale (Fouad, Smith, & Enoch, 1997). Ali et al. (2018) reported Cronbach’s α of .92 to .93. For the present study, Cronbach’s α of HCTES scores was .89 at pretest and .92 at posttest.
HC search self-efficacy (HCSSE)
The HCSSE Scale is a 20-item self-report instrument to assess students’ beliefs in their ability to search for and find information pertaining to HCs (Ali et al., 2018). Participants were asked to rate their confidence in their ability to perform a given task on a scale of 1 (no confidence) to 5 (complete confidence) with higher scores indicating higher search self-efficacy beliefs regarding finding HC information. Total scores were calculated. Examples of items include: “I feel confident I can find information about health-care jobs that fit my career interests.” Ali et al. (2018) reported evidence of convergent validity (correlation of .51) with the MSSE (Fouad et al., 1997). Ali et al. (2018) reported an internal consistency estimate (Cronbach’s α) ranging from .91 to .92. In the present study, Cronbach’s α of the HSSE scores was .87 at pretest and .91 at posttest.
HC outcome expectations (HCOE)
The HCOE Scale is a 15-item self-report scale designed to measure how students believe their actions will impact their future school and career choices (Ali et al., 2018). Directions within this scale are framed as “if, then” statements to measure the students’ beliefs about the outcomes of their actions (e.g., “If I choose a major with a lot of MS, then I will be able to pursue a career in health care”). Participants rated the extent to which they agree or disagree with each statement on a 6-point Likert-type scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). Total scores were used in this study, with higher scores indicating higher outcome expectations. Ali et al. (2018) reported evidence of convergent validity (correlation of .61) with the MS Outcome Expectation (MSOE) Scale (Smith & Fouad, 1999). In Ali and colleagues’ (2018) study, Cronbach’s α of HCOE ranged from .91 to .92. In the present study, Cronbach’s α was .86 at pretest and .94 at posttest.
HCI
The HCI Scale measures the degree to which students were interested in pursuing health careers (Ali et al., 2018). Participants answered 14 items and rated the extent to which they may like an activity on a 6-point Likert-type scale of 1 (dislike extremely) to 6 (like extremely). Total scores were used, with higher scores representing higher levels of interests in HC-related activities. Examples of HC activities included “Taking a field trip to a health care–related setting” and “Talking with professionals in my chosen career path.” Ali et al. (2018) reported some evidence of validity (correlation of .27) with an existing subject-specific interest scale (i.e., MS Interests Scale; Fouad & Smith, 1996). Ali et al. (2018) reported Cronbach’s α ranging from .94 to .96. For the current study, Cronbach’s α was .94 at pretest and .95 at posttest for the HCI.
MSSE
The MSSE (Fouad, & Smith, 1996) assesses students’ beliefs regarding their ability to perform MS-related tasks and activities. The MSSE consists of 12-items on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (very low ability) to 5 (very high ability) with higher scores representing higher MSSE. Total scores were used in the present study. Examples items include: “Design and describe a science experiment I want to do” and “Get an A in science in high school.” Fouad and Smith (1996) reported evidence of convergent validity (correlation of .54) with the career decision-making self-efficacy middle school subscale (Fouad et al., 1997). Fouad and Smith (1996) reported an internal consistency reliability of .84 for scores on this scale. For the current study, internal consistency was estimated to be .88 at pretest and .92 at posttest.
MSOE
The MSOE (Fouad & Smith, 1996) assesses how students believe their actions will impact their future performance on tasks pertaining to MS. Questions within this instrument are framed as “if, then” statements to measure the students’ beliefs about the outcomes of their actions (e.g., “If I do well in science classes in middle school, then I will do well in high school”). Participants were asked to answer 7 items on a 5-point Likert-type scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Total scores were obtained and interpreted with higher scores indicating higher levels of outcome expectations related to MS. Fouad and Smith (1996) reported evidence of convergent validity (correlation of .71) with the career decision-making outcome expectancies subscale. Fouad and Smith (1996) reported Cronbach’s α of .80 with a middle school sample. For the current study, Cronbach’s α was .88 at pretest and .92 at posttest for the MSOE scores.
MS intentions
MS Intentions Scale measures students’ intention to pursue a career related to MS (Fouad & Smith, 1996). The scale consists of 6 self-report items using a 5-point Likert-type scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Total scores were used, and higher scores indicate a higher level of overall agreement with the statements of intention. Examples are “I intend to enter a career that will use science” and “I am determined to use my science knowledge in my future career.” Fouad and Smith (1996) reported evidence of convergent validity (correlation of .66) with the career decision-making intentions and goals subscale. Fouad and Smith (1996) reported internal consistency estimate using Cronbach’s α of 81. For the current study, Cronbach’s α was .81 at pretest and .89 at posttest for MS intentions scores.
MS interests
The MS Interests Scale (Fouad & Smith, 1996) is a 20-item self-report instrument to assess students’ interests in MS-related activities (Fouad & Smith, 1996). Participants rated the extent to which they like an activity on a 3-point Likert-type scale of 1 (dislike) to 3 (like). Higher scores indicate higher levels of interests in MS. Examples are “Working in a science lab” and “Participating in a science fair.” Fouad and Smith (1996) reported some evidence of validity (correlation ranging from .20 to .38) with similar constructs (e.g., interests in other subject-matter areas, such as art, English, social studies). Fouad and Smith reported an internal consistency reliability of .90 with middle school students. The Cronbach’s α in the current study was .87 at pretest and .88 at posttest.
Procedure
The study was approved by the authors’ institutional review board. To participate in the intervention, informed assent/consent was obtained from all students and their parents or guardians. There were two intervention conditions (e.g., SCCT only and SCCT + SPD). The intervention took place at one middle school in intact career classes, which all eighth-grade students were required to take. There were four sections of the career class. Before implementing the intervention, sections were randomly assigned to either the SCCT-only or the SCCT + SPD conditions (two sections to each condition). Three counseling psychology doctoral students led all intervention groups to control for implementation fidelity. For the pretest, students responded to all measures via an online Qualtrics survey. Students also answered an online posttest survey consisting of the same measures 1 week after completing the intervention. Approximately 30 min was needed to complete each online survey.
Intervention
Project HOPE (Ali, 2013; Ali et al., 2017) is a career intervention developed to facilitate the exploration of health-care occupations among rural students living in immigrant communities. Project HOPE was specifically designed, so that students can tie their career interests to MS subjects as well as the health-care world of work. Because the field of health care involves many different types of occupations, an interdisciplinary health and science team was used to develop and implement Project HOPE. The main organizing team was based in the counseling psychology program in the College of Education of a large Midwestern university. The larger team comprised researchers and staff from all of the health science colleges (e.g., pharmacy, medicine, dentistry, nursing, public health), as well as other university partners including the Colleges of Business, Liberal Arts and Sciences (e.g., biology, physics, speech pathology/audiology, urban planning, chemistry), and the State Hygienic Laboratory.
The intervention was based in SCCT, with the activities designed to incorporate the five critical ingredients of career interventions (Brown & Krane, 2000) and to target specific SCCT constructs. Seven sessions of Project HOPE were delivered in each of the four career classes during regular class periods for seven consecutive weeks. The first session focused on introducing health career world of work information to students through an interactive jeopardy game. The second session focused on activities using Holland’s realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional (RIASEC) codes (Holland, 1997) to help students identify their interests within health careers. The third session used an interactive game to directly address barriers and supports for career attainment in health careers including MS achievement barriers and supports. In the fourth session, students participated in a job search activity using online resources including health career websites to research their top health career interests as identified in Session 2.
The fifth session differed between the SCCT + SPD condition and the SCCT-only condition. In the SCCT + SPD condition classrooms, a group of physicians and medical students from the community came to discuss their career paths with the eighth-grade students. The speakers were given a list of discussion points prior to their participation. The research team derived and compiled the discussion points from the components of SPD for low SES minority adolescents as synthesized by Diemer and Hsieh (2008). Speakers were specifically instructed to discuss their transition from high school to college (including their own career development process, community values and culture, and changes in workload), the unique considerations for Latinx students going to college (including peer support, family responsibilities, and how to overcome barriers such as discrimination, stereotyping, and lack of academic preparation in MS), resources within the community (e.g., how students can get involved in extracurricular activities, and ways to engage with the community), and how their chosen careers have benefited the community.
In the fifth session of the SCCT-only condition, the facilitators played a wrap-up game that involved reviewing what students learned in the first four sessions. In both the SCCT and SCCT + SPD conditions, the sixth session involved students creating poster presentations of their career aspirations related to the specific health career they researched in Sessions 2–5. In the seventh session, students presented their career poster to their peers, teachers, and Project HOPE facilitators and discussed how their career interest could contribute to the betterment of their rural community. They also described the MS preparation needed for the career.
After the first seven sessions, all students participated in an eighth session, which involved a field trip to the university to participate in health career simulation activities delivered by the university departments involved in the study. All simulation activities included hands-on laboratory or career-related activities. For example, students who attended the simulation in the College of Pharmacy learned to use laboratory equipment to make lip balm and hand lotion. Faculty, graduate students, and staff in the other disciplines facilitated similar types of hands-on sessions. Each student attended two simulations for the eighth session. Full details of the Project HOPE curriculum and activities are available by contacting the first author.
Results
Table 1 shows correlation coefficients among the study variables. Statistically significant positive correlations were observed in most bivariate relationships among the research variables (p < .05 or p < .01), except for the four bivariate correlations between the following variables at pretest: HCTSE and HCI; HCIs and MSSE; HCIs and MSOE; HCIs and MS Interests (all ps = ns).
Correlation Coefficients of the Sociocognitive Career Variables at Pretest and Posttest.
Note. N = 91 (participants completed both pretest and posttest). Correlations coefficients of the pretest scores were displayed above the diagonal and those in the posttests were displayed in the below the diagonal. HC = health-care career; MS = math/science.
*p < .05. **p < .01.
Hypothesis 1 which stated students overall would demonstrate increases in outcome variables from pretest to posttest was examined by a one-way repeated measure analysis of variance (ANOVA; Table 2). Partial eta-squared (
Results of Repeated Analyses of Variance by Measurement (Time).
Note. N = 91. HC = health-care career; MS = math/science. Effect size: small,
*p < .05. **p < .01.
A split-plot repeated measure ANOVA was conducted to test Hypothesis 2, which stated participants in the SCCT + SPD condition would report greater gains of health science and MSSE beliefs, outcome expectations, and interests from pretest to posttest than those in the SCCT-only condition. The ethnicity group variable was also added to the testing model to examine Hypothesis 3, which stated ethnic minority participants in the SCCT + SPD condition would report grater gains of the outcome variables.
The results regarding Hypothesis 2 are also shown in Table 3. In terms of the main effect (time) in each condition, results demonstrated a 3.54-point increase on the HCI scale in the SCCT + SPD condition (SE = 1.72, 95% CI [0.060, 7.01], F = 4.214, p = 0.04, medium effect size η2 = .09), from pretest to posttest; however, no significant change was found in the SCCT-only condition, F = 0.120, p = ns. For the rest of outcome variables, no significant changes were observed in either condition (all ps = ns). Table 4 demonstrates the interaction effects (Ethnicity × Time) in each condition. For both conditions, the results showed no statistically significant interaction effects related to ethnicity groups for any of the outcome variables (all ps = ns).
Results of Split-Plot Repeated Measures Analyses of Variance in Each Condition.
Note. HC = health-care career; MS = math/science; difference = posttest scores minus pretest score.
*p < .05.
Interaction Effects (Time × Ethnicity Group) in Each Condition.
Note. HC = health-care career; MS = math/science.
Discussion
This quasi-experimental investigation tested whether adding a sociopolitical component to an SCCT-based health career intervention program, Project HOPE (Ali, 2013; Ali et al., 2017), was more effective than the SCCT-only condition at increasing SCCT variables of HCTSE beliefs, HCSSE beliefs, HCI, HCOE, MSSE beliefs, MSOE, MS intentions, and MS interests for a group of rural underserved eighth-grade students. Results indicated partial support for the hypotheses, with increases reported on some outcome measures and not on others. Hypothesis 1 stated that Project HOPE participants, regardless of the condition or ethnic background, would demonstrate increases from pretest to posttest on the SCCT-based outcome variables. This hypothesis was partially supported. Overall, students reported a significant increase in HCI and MS Interests. This finding is congruent with the main goal of the intervention of increasing the interest of rural students in HCs. The Project HOPE curriculum facilitated the identification of students’ interests through the Holland party. Facilitators helped students explore specific careers in health care related to their identified interests through the job search activities. Additionally, the intervention heavily emphasized the connection between MS and HCs. Beyond interest, the results did not indicate increases on the other SCCT variables. SCCT posits that the strongest predictor of self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations is performance accomplishments (Lent et al., 1994). Thus, rural students may need to experience ongoing performance-based accomplishments (e.g., work experiences in health fields or community-based projects) that more directly provide them an opportunity to master HC-related tasks in order to increase their self-efficacy and outcome expectations for these types of careers.
Hypothesis 2 stated that participants in the SCCT + SPD condition would demonstrate greater increases on the SCCT variables relative to the SCCT-only participants. This hypothesis was supported for HCI only. No significant increases were found from pretest to posttest in the SCCT + SPD condition or the SCCT-only condition on any of the other outcome variables. This finding provides some limited evidence for the incorporation of SPD variables into career interventions with regard to increasing interest in HCs. Diemer and Hsieh (2008) suggested that one way to increase the vocational expectation of students from minority backgrounds is to tie their career development to community needs and sociopolitical realities. Based on the findings of this study, it is possible that students in the SCCT + SPD condition were able to connect health career opportunities to community needs and thus, became more interested in these careers than those in the SCCT-only condition. Further studies are required to support this claim.
Hypothesis 3 tested whether ethnic minority participants would report greater gains on outcome variables in the SPD + SCCT condition as compared to the SCCT-only condition. The results demonstrated no differences for ethnic minorities between the conditions, suggesting that ethnicity is not related to the effectiveness of either condition. In terms of increasing health-care interests, this suggests that the SCCT + SPD condition may work similarly for both White and Latinx students.
Despite the increases in interest, it is important to note that the other SCCT-related variables were not affected by either condition of the Project HOPE intervention. This suggests that further attention to programmatic components is needed. For example, self-efficacy beliefs are increased by mastery experiences, vicarious learning, verbal persuasion, and physiological arousal states (Lent et al., 1994). Although Project HOPE addresses these sources of self-efficacy through positive feedback and hands-on activities, students may not have enough opportunities or enough time to actually make increases in their self-efficacy beliefs. Similarly, outcome expectations are addressed in the intervention by discussing the influence attaining a HC can have on the students’ lives and the well-being of their community. However, these elements may be so subtle in their current form that they have minimal influence on the students. Further, this study only assesses positive outcome expectations and ignores changes in negative outcome expectations. Investigation of negative outcome expectations for these adolescents should be included, as has been tested by other researchers (Lee, Flores, Navarro, & Suh, 2016). Further inclusion of programmatic elements that address these different socio-cognitive factors will be important for future interventions.
Limitations
Our study may provide important information about the effectiveness of a SPD within an SCCT-based career education intervention, yet it is not without limitations. First, while we randomly assigned intact classes to conditions, participants themselves were not randomly assigned to the classes, which is required for experimental confidence in the findings. While true experimental studies can be more difficult to conduct in school settings, it is crucial to have random assignment of participants, as class characteristics may have influenced outcome variables. Second, we only assessed variables at two data points (pretest and posttest) within a small sample of students. Longitudinal research with larger sample sizes across rural school settings is needed to determine how the conditions are associated with longer term outcomes. This would also provide more information about the educational and career choices students make, as well as whether students actually pursued health careers. Finally, while the SCCT + SPD condition increases HCI for all students, more can be done to infuse components of SPD into Project HOPE and make it relevant for students’ contexts. These components need to help all students, but especially ethnic minority students, to see the connection between pursuing HCs and the benefit of this to their communities. For example, asking students to design and implement service projects that address local needs within their community may be a more powerful way of helping students to make connections between health careers and community needs.
Practical and Research Implications
Despite these limitations, this study provides some implications for the development of career interventions for rural youth living in predominantly immigrant communities. Results of this study provide support for SCCT-based interventions to increase HC and MS interests and some very limited support for the inclusion of SPD components into these interventions. Brown and Lent (2016) have argued that attention to sociopolitical issues has the potential to promote positive vocational expectations for youth.
Further work is needed to create career interventions that more fully include SPD components, and replication studies need to be conducted to clearly evaluate the outcomes of such programming. Ali and Verry (2014) asserted that researchers and counselors who develop career interventions for K–12 students might consider ways that SPD can be incorporated, so that it is culturally consistent and meaningful for students. Specifically, involving community members who link career aspirations directly to community improvement may provide an important source of learning experiences that can affect rural ethnic minority youth’s expectations for their future. Diemer et al. (2010) suggested fostering SPD for students of color to help them understand the structural barriers they are facing and possibly to feel motivated to reduce inequities in their communities.
Finally, this study contributes to the growing need to evaluate career interventions with younger populations. Whiston, Li, Mitts, and Wright (2017) argued that career intervention strategies should occur either before or during middle school due to the national focus on college and career readiness. The Department of Labor, along with a number of other federal agencies, has also made a call for research that increases understanding of how to best support disconnected youth and help improve the nation’s future workforce (U.S. Department of Labor, 2014).
Conclusion
The present study provides mixed support for the effectiveness of an SCCT-based career intervention program, Project HOPE, for diverse rural youth. Vocational psychologists are in a position to continue investigating these types of interventions and to better understand what is most helpful for different subsets of the population and in what format. Further efforts to implement well-researched interventions to promote youth development in rural areas and connect these to community needs could have a positive effect on rural youths’ career development and on the physical and financial health of rural communities.
Footnotes
Author's Note
Samantha D. Brown is now affiliated with Coe College in Cedar Rapids, IA.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by funding from the John Deere Foundation, Iowa Measurement Research Fund, and a donation from Stuff, etc.