Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of this comparative research study was to determine the perceptions of career counselors and principals on the types of career decision-making difficulties experienced by high school students and the extent to which a large-scale high school technology-based career development program addresses these difficulties, using the framework of career decision-making difficulties outlined by Gati et al. (1996). Methodology. This study utilized a causal-comparative research to attempt to identify cause-effect relationships between 122 identified education experts in career counseling, principals, and other participants. The participants belong to the K16 Bridge program to compare the 10 dependent variables, in this case the career decision-making difficulties identified by Gati et al. (1996), among high school students. The data were calculated and analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean, median, mode, and so forth) and the ANOVA test. Findings. The researcher concluded there was no statistically significant difference between how career counselors and principals perceived their students' ability to make career decisions and that the career education program only somewhat addressed these difficulties. Conclusions. This study relied on Gati et al.'s (1996) taxonomy of career decision-making difficulties. The participants identified those career decision difficulties to be consistent with the findings from previous research and literature. Showing no significant difference between the groups in this study is meaningful, because it provides reassurance that the gap in their perceptions is minimal. This is important, because if the gap did exist, it would require intervention to get career counselors and principals on the same page. Recommendations. Further research is advised to consider other participants in other career education programs. Further research is advised to examine the perceptions of career counselors and principals and compare those perceptions against their actual student scores from the CDDQ. In addition to the students' perceptions, it would be valuable to compare the presence of the 10 career decision-making difficulties among students, their parents, career counselors, and principals. It would be interesting to see if the students and parents perceive greater career decision-making difficulties than the counselors and principals.