The thesis of this investigation was that a systematic program of career exploration for college freshmen can improve their career decidedness. A Career Exploration Program was designed by the writer to facilitate two principal objectives of the career exploration process: (a) the understanding of personal needs and values which affect career decisions; and (b) the acquisition of meaningful career information from individuals in the world of work. The program consisted of two components designed to achieve these objectives. In the first component, a standardized self-appraisal inventory, the Hall Occupational Orientation Inventory (HALL), was administered to students following a ninety-minute orientation to decision-making theory. In the second component, college alumni were recruited to meet with students at work locations. Meetings were scheduled with alumni in careers corresponding to the students' stated interests. Students were encouraged to correlate information about themselves derived from the HALL with information obtained in interviews.

The investigation was conducted in 1977-78 at Roanoke College, a small private liberal arts college in Salem, Virginia. One hundred-sixty freshmen were selected randomly to participate and assigned to one of four equal size groups. Group 1 served as a control. Group 2 received the orientation and completed the HALL. Group 3 interviewed alumni. Group 4 participated in both of these components of the program.

It was hypothesized that participation by Groups 2, 3, and 4 in the components of the program would result in students exhibiting greater career decidedness over the control group. The Assessment of Career Decision Making-Form B (ACDM-B), developed by Vincent A. Harren, was administered to members of each group at six week intervals in a pretest/ posttest/post-posttest format. The instrument measured change in career decidedness along a continuum of four decision-making stages identified by David V. Tiedeman: exploration, crystallization, choice, and clarification. A multivariate analysis of covariance was used to test for group, sex, and group-sex interaction. A multiple comparisons analysis was used to compare all possible pairs of groups. A two-factor analysis of variance with repeated measures was performed to identify interaction effects across time.

In tests of the stated hypotheses, it was determined that: (a) students in Group 2 differed significantly (.05) from the control on the clarification stage; (b) students in Group 3 did not differ significantly from any of the groups; and (c) students in Group 4 differed significantly (.05) from the control on the choice stage and on the ACDM-B weighted score.

It was concluded that the three groups receiving treatments exhibited movement in the hypothesized direction toward greater decidedness. Clearly Group 4, which participated in the combination of components, evidenced the greatest change in career decidedness. Sex was not found to influence career decidedness. The self-appraisal experience alone and the combination of self-appraisal and alumni interviews resulted in significant differences from the pretest to posttest. Significant interaction (.05) was found among group means on the tests. A slight decline was noted on the post-posttest for Groups 2 and 4, which exhibited significant change on the posttest. Conversely, Group 3, participating in only the alumni interviews, increased slightly on post-posttest scores--evidence of a delayed effect of treatment. The findings suggest that the integrated self-appraisal and alumni visitation program had a positive effect on the career decision-making behavior of college freshmen.