TY - JOUR

T1 - The Career Engagement Scale: Development and validation of a measure of proactive career behaviors

AU - Hirschi, Andreas

AU - Freund, Philipp Alexander

AU - Herrmann, Anne

PY - 2014/11/12

Y1 - 2014/11/12

N2 - Careers today increasingly require engagement in proactive career behaviors; however, there is a lack of validated measures assessing the general degree to which somebody is engaged in such career behaviors. We describe the results of six studies with six independent samples of German university students (total N = 2,854), working professionals (total N = 561), and university graduates (N = 141) that report the development and validation of the Career Engagement scale—a measure of the degree to which somebody is proactively developing his or her career as expressed by diverse career behaviors. The studies provide support for measurement invariance across gender and time. In support of convergent and discriminant validity, we find that career engagement is more prevalent among working professionals than among university students and that this scale has incremental validity above several specific career behaviors regarding its relation to vocational identity clarity and career self-efficacy beliefs among students and to job and career satisfaction among employees. In support of incremental predictive validity, beyond the effects of several more specific career behaviors, career engagement while at university predicts higher job and career satisfaction several months later after beginning work.

AB - Careers today increasingly require engagement in proactive career behaviors; however, there is a lack of validated measures assessing the general degree to which somebody is engaged in such career behaviors. We describe the results of six studies with six independent samples of German university students (total N = 2,854), working professionals (total N = 561), and university graduates (N = 141) that report the development and validation of the Career Engagement scale—a measure of the degree to which somebody is proactively developing his or her career as expressed by diverse career behaviors. The studies provide support for measurement invariance across gender and time. In support of convergent and discriminant validity, we find that career engagement is more prevalent among working professionals than among university students and that this scale has incremental validity above several specific career behaviors regarding its relation to vocational identity clarity and career self-efficacy beliefs among students and to job and career satisfaction among employees. In support of incremental predictive validity, beyond the effects of several more specific career behaviors, career engagement while at university predicts higher job and career satisfaction several months later after beginning work.

KW - Business psychology

KW - career behaviors

KW - career counseling

KW - career development

KW - proactivity

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84908674023&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/1069072713514813

DO - 10.1177/1069072713514813

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 22

SP - 575

EP - 594

JO - Journal of Career Assessment

JF - Journal of Career Assessment

SN - 1069-0727

IS - 4

ER -