Career Choice Processes

Author(s): Fred E. Katz and Harry W. Martin

Source: Social Forces, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Dec., 1962), pp. 149-154
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2573605
Accessed: 19-01-2018 21:36 UTC

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 CAREER CHOICE PROCESSES 149

CAREER CHOICE PROCESSES*

FRED E. KATZ
University of Missoutri
AND

HARRY W. MARTIN
Uiliversity of Texas Medical Centter

ABSTRACT
It is postulated that there exist patterns of career choice which are 'based on a series of situa-
tional decisions which, individually, have no rational connection with the choice of a- particular
occupation but, nonetheless, comprise the process of embarkation upon a career. The data are
from a study of student nurses.

T his paper investigates career choices
among student nurses. It explores the
possibility that entry upon an occupa-
tional career, such as nursing, may be pre-
dicated less upon a deliberate choice of nursing
than upon a series of limited decisions focused
upon immediate problems encountered at the
stage of the life cycle in which the adolescent
girl finds herself. The view which is here
adopted is that the process of entry into an
occupation may be looked upoll as the cumula-
tive product of a series of specific acts, whichi
may or may not be directly focused upon a
deliberate career choice. In the present paper
the emphasis is primarily upon non-career
oriented acts. It is not suggested that such acts
characterize all types of career choice.
Eli Ginzberg has done pioneering work in
the study of decision-making processes involved
in career choice. In his Occupational Choice' he
took as his point of departure Lazarsfeld's ad-
monition to seek a genetic approach to the
topic.2 Ginzberg and his colleagues build a
theory based on an evolution of increasing self-
determination as well as increasingly realistic
attunement of the individual to his environment
as he matures. The individual is thought to go
through a period of fantasy (when he cannot
assess his capacities), a tentative period (when
*This investigation was supported by a grant,
2M-6157, from the National Institute of Mental
Health, United States Public Health Service.
-1Eli Ginzberg and Associates, Occupational
Choice: An Approach to a General Theory (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1951).
2Paul Lazarsfeld, fugend und Beruf (Jena: G.
Fischer, 1931). Cited in R. K. Merton, G. G.
Reader, P. L. Kendall, Editors, The Student
Physician (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1957), p. 110.
he weighs various satisfactions), and finally,
a realistic period (when he makes compromises
between his individual wants and the actual op-
portunities which exist for him). We are in
broad agreement with Ginzberg's basic thesis
that "occupational choice is a process," that
"the process is largely irreversible" (that is,
decisions once made cannot be "unmade," anld
that they affect the subsequent career life), and
that the process "ends in a compromise." Our
main divergence from Ginzberg is one of em-
phasis. Whereas his focus is upon career
choices as seen in the context of the individual's
miaturation, we suggest conceiving career
choices as courses of action which are com-
posites of adaptations-by individuals, to be
sure-to meet the exigencies of particular, im-
mediate situations.
Our study deals with students at the School
of Nursing of a southern university. The study
spanned a four-year period. It was possible,
therefore, to obtain data on one class from the
time of admission to the time of graduation.
The questionnaires on which the present paper
is largely based included some questions which
Columbia University researchers asked medical
students;3 this provides an opportunity of com-
paring career choice behavior of student nurses
with that of student physicians.
The thesis of this paper is as follows: The
decisions which underlie embarkation on a
nursing career for at least some persons revolve
around limited, situational contingences-in
which the matter of nursing-as-career enters
3 R. K. Merton, G. G. Reader, P. L. Kendall,
Editors. The Student Physician., op. cit. We are
particularly referring to N. Rogoff's article entitled,
"The Decision to Study Medicine."

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 150 SOCIAL FORCES
only tangentially or not at all. Such "situa-
tionally delimited" decisions, we are suggesting,
do not involve definite career decisions in terms
of a subjective career commitment,4 but none-
theless these decisions constitute the active
steps toward entry upon a career.
We first began to formulate the thesis when
a perusal of answers to open-ended questions
suggested that the student nurses exhibited
much vagueness as to the time and occasion
when they first began to consider becoming
nurses. In response to the open-ended question
"In your own words, what were the main
reasons that let you to choose nursing for your
career ?" We received such answers as: "I
really don't know exactly, but for a long time
I wanted to be a nurse... ."5 and, "As do many
little girls, I had an early childhood ambition
of becoming a nurse-I never became dis-
interested (sic) in this field although I had no
specific reasons for entering nursing. . . ." It
is conceivable, of course, that the events which
are crucial in the "decisions" have been forgot-
ten or repressed. This is the customary ex-
planation of answers of this kind. It is sup-
ported by the fact that wlhen we posed the
question "When did you definitely decide on
nursing?"6 over 99 percent of the nurses did in-
4 By "subjective commitment to a career" we
refer to an individual's incorporating conceptions
about practicing the career into himself; we do
not know, at this stage, what conceptions are in-
volved, and we do not wish to make statements
about the degree of "depth" of personality and
emotional involvement.
Although there may be no subjective career
commitment, the situationally-delimited decisions
are likely to involve action commitments for the
individual. For example, enrolling in nursing school
carries a degree of commitment to complete nurs-
ing education-the third year student may feel that
she has "invested" in nursing education and, if
lacking other motivations, she may continue in
nursing because of this investment alone. In Ginz-
berg's terms we might say that the situationally-de-The older man may feel that his basic decision was
limited decisions are not "realistic" in terms of a
made after he entered medical school-on the basis
career.
5This is the type of response which is often
discarded in the analysis of data.
6 This question is a replica of the question
asked by the Columbia researchers (Merton, et. al.,
op. cit., p. 14 ff). The question is worded thus:
"At what age did you definitely decide to study
nursing ?
Before the age of 14
At 14 or 15 years of age
At 16 or 17 years of age
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dicate that they had made a "definite decision."
Unfortunately this type of question assumes
that there was a "definite decision"-that it
is only a question of finding out when it oc-
curred. The real question, we suggest, is to
what extent were there actually definite deci-
sions or, conversely, to what extent are the
"dec,isions" artifacts of the research pro-
cedure?7 Do we not have to reckon with the
likelihood that a student-or -any individual,
for that matter-is inclined to give a reply
within the scope of the framework provided for
him? And, more pointedly, we are inclined to
ask to what extent and in what manner are the
"decisions" related to a desire for a career of
nursing, or are they merely decisions relating to
the solutions of problems which may be quite
removed from the notion of a career of
nursing?
Support for the thesis comes from statements
by girls concerning uncertainty and vagueness
as to when they first thought of nursing as a
career for themselves. We combined answers to
the two open-endled questions: "Which occupa-
tions or professions (lid you consider (before
deciding on nursing), and why did you decide
against them?" and "In your own words, what
were the main reasons that led you to choose
nursing for your career ?" from a class of fresh-
man students. Twenty-six percent (17 out of
65) made statements to the effect that they did
7 The senior author's present thinking was affect-
ed by another study on which he has been engaged.
This involves case studies of practicing physicians.
One of the subjects of that study stated that it was
only in his second year of medical school that he
discovered that he really wanted to become a
physician. We would venture the opinion that if
the above question concerning a definite career
decision had been asked of this man in his first
year in medical school, he would probably have
indicated a "definite decision" in his past. One
must of course reckon with retrospective bias here.
of his current perspective. To the young man, how-
ever, an earlier decision may have appeared
crucial and definitive (rationalization may or may
not have been involved). But another explanation,
the one we are here exploring, is that there was
no definite career decision before the person entered
professional school, and that this can be objectively
demonstrated.
Between 18 or 20 years of age
Since the age of 21"
 CAREER CHOICE PROCESSES 151
not know when they began to be interested in
nursing, or that they "had always" wanted to
do the sort of work which they felt nursing
entailed (helping the sick, alleviating suffering,
being around hospitals, etc.). We were persuad-
ed to think that students' statements to the
effect that they could not recall specific oc-
casions on which they first entertained the
idea of becoming nurses might point to an ab-
sence of specific career decisions. We asked
ourselves whether it is not likely that for some
of the students, the expressions of vagueness
about career decisions constitute relatively ac-
curate descriptions of a series of unplanned,
situation-bound acts-acts which were not
specifically and explicitly tied to a conception
of a career of nursing but which, in their
totality, added up to the girl's entering a nurs-
ing training program.
This is amplified by responses to the ques-
tion: "At what age did you definitely decide to
study nursing ?" The following results emerged:
Group 1 Nunber Percent
Before 14 . ............. 7 10.6
At 14 or 15 . ................ 8 12.1
At 16 or 17 . ............ 41 62.1
Between 18 and 20 ......... 10 15.2
Since 21.
Total . ........... 66 100.0
Group 2 Number Percent
Before 14 .............. 17 13.0
At 14 or 15 ............... 27 20.6
At 16 or 17 . ........... 72 54.9
Between 18 and 20 ... 14 10.7
Since 21 ... . 1 .8
Total .. 131 100.0
The first group is comprised of a freshman
class. The second is made up of a freshman, a
sophomore, and a junior class. (The members
of the first freshman class are not included in
the second group.) It is apparent that in both
groups the responses concentrate heavily in the
period immediately preceding entrance to
college and during the early years in college.
On the basis of our conceptualization, we pro-
pose that persons who have made only situa-
tionally-delimited decisions will be more likely
to place themselves in the "16 or 17 years of
age" or "18 to 20 years of age" categories of
the above question than any other category.
Our thinking is based on the notion that even
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though they have not definitely decided that
they wish to become nurses, they must, at this
stage of their life, make decisions about their
occupational future (including the type of
course they wish to follow in college). We are
suggesting that what many of these persons
reported as "definite" career decisions were
really decisions revolving around such things
as the choice of college education-rather than
a definite desire to be a nurse. (The corollary
to this postulate is that persons who have made
definite career decisions are no more likely to
place themselves in the "16 to 17" and "18 to
20" age categories than in any other category
of the above question.) We would then expect
a greater proportion of the persons with definite
commitment to nursing to fall in the "under 16"
age category. If we can take successful com-
pletion of nursing school as an index of "com-
mitment" to nursing,8 we would expect that a
greater proportion of the persons stating that
they made a definite career decision before
the age of 16 will complete the nursing program
than persons placing themselves in the "16 and
over" categories. This is, indeed, borne out
by the data Table 1.9
The question regarding age of definite deci-
sions was asked of medical students by the
Columbia researchers.10 The findings were
quite similar to ours: 67 percent of the students
8 This is an admittedly crude yardstick.
9 We would also expect drop-out rates during the
school program to reflect this differential rate of
graduation. The questionnaire was administered
to the first group at the beginning of their freshman
year when no students had yet dropped out of the
program. When the second group took the ques-
tionnaire there had been a drop-out of 27.5 per-
cent-based on the initial freshman enrollment of
the respective classes. As we compare the responses
of the two groups we note that in the second group
the "under 16" age categories make up 33.6 per-
cent of the responses (as against 22.7 percent of
the first group) and the "16 and over" categories
account for the remaining 66.4 percent of the re-
sponses of that group (as against 77.3 percent in
the first group). This would seem to suggest that
more of the "under 16" persons are remaining in
the program-that is, "drop-outs" of the second
group seem to follow the same pattern as the "non-
graduates" in the first group. Our conclusions must
be tentative, however, since we do not have the dis-
tribution of responses from the second group at an
earlier neriod of time.
10 The Student Physician, op. cit. See N.
Rogoff's "The Decision to Study Medicine."
 152 SOCIAL
TABLE 1. RELATION BETWEEN GRADUATING FROM
NURSING SCHOOL AND AGE WHEN DEFINITELY
DECIDED TO STUDY NURSING*
Age at time of "definite decision"
Under 16 16 or over Total
Graduated 12 24 36t
80% 47%
Not Graduated 3 27 30
20% 53%
Total 15 51
X2=3.8352, corrected
acter of the continuity;
a one-tail test; 1 d.f.
* We have graduation data only for the first group.
t We do not know what proportion of the 36 graduates are persons
who have made definite subjective career commitments. The practical
importance of discovering the proportion of subjectively committed gradu-
ates need hardly be elaborated.
reported that they made their definite decisions
between the ages of 16 and 20.11 However, the
explanation offered by the Columbia research-
ers differs markedly from ours. They state:
For the modal student-the definite career choice
is keyed to the institutional requirements of the
educational system. He does not prolong his choice
much beyond the point when he must select
courses appropriate to medical school prerequi-
sites, nor does he arrive at the decision before the
socially prescribed time.12
We may ask, to what extent do the require-
ments of the institutional system make it
seen (to the medical student himself as well
as to the behavioral researcher) that there have
been definite career decisions? As far as the
institutional system goes, signing up for pre-
medical course work at a time when the medical
school program requires it means that the in-
dividual has empirically demonstrated com-
pliance with the system. He has, indeed, made a
decision. But is it necessarily a decision in-
volving a definite desire for a medical career ?13
To what extent can one accept the responses
of "definite decisions" at face value? We are
not suggesting that the students are deliberately
making false statements. But we are suggesting
11 Ibid., p. 115.
12 Ibid.
13 We are making a distinction between a sub-
jective commitment and an overt compliance
a system. The two may proceed with varying de-
gree of interdependence; but we postulate that they
need not be identical.
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FORCES
that those students who have not made definite
career commitments are likely to place them-
selves in the 16 to 20 year age group because,
at this period, our system of education dictates
taking certain definite steps in the direction
of a career. These steps may be perceived, in
the absence of other commitments, as definite
career choices. Rogoff's explanation of the
clustering of responses in the 16 to 20 age cate-
gory is that the time of "definite career choice
is geared to the institutional- requirements of
the educational system.114 While some students
66 may make their definite decisions at this time
-and may be encouraged to do so by the char-
for
system-we would vioce an significan
element
of caution as to the adequacy of this explana-
tion in view of our previous considerations.
It might seem that persons who have given
longest consideration to a nurse career are
most likely to graduate. This gains some sup-
port from our finding that early "definite
deciders" are more likely to graduate than late
"definite deciders."15 In order to examine this
further we considered responses to the question
"At what age did you first think of becoming a
nurse ?" This yielded the following results:
Before 10 . ............ 35 53.0
Between 10 and 13 ......... 12 18.2
At 14 or 15 ................ 10 15.2
At 16 or 1.7 ................ 8 12.1
Since 18 . ............ 1 1.5
Total ....66 100.00
A large proportion of the answers fall into the
"before 10" age category. This led us to in-
vestigate whether a preponderant proportion
of these "before 10" persons are "committed"
to nursing. We shall again use graduation from
nursing school as an index of commitment. The
present question, it must be emphasized, does
not purport to deal with definite decisions-but
merely with "thinking about" studying nursing.
It is our contention that this difference is cru-
cial in career commitments. The latter, we
suspect, may frequently connote little more than
14 Rogoff, loc. cit.
15 We might add, parenthetically, that psycho-
analytic theory leads us to expect that definite
career decisions are quite likely to occur in the
early part of life, and that definite commitments
with
may have occurred even when there is no explicit
recollection of the occasion when they came into
being.
 CAREER CHOICE PROCESSES ; 153
TABLE 2. RELATION BETWEEN GRADUATION FROM
NURSING SCHOOL AND AGE WHEN FIRST THOUGHT OF
BECOMING A NURSE
Age at time of first tbinking of becoming a nurse
Under 10 10 and over Total
Graduated 20 16 36
57.1% 50%
Not Graduated 15 16 31
42.9% 50%
Total 35 32 67
X2= .167, corrected for
ing" about contiDuity;
nursing yields further insights.
When using the same age breakdown as in Table 1-"under 16" and
"16 and over"-the X2 is .087.
cultural exposure to "playing nurse"-a child-
hood experience to which almost every girl in
our society is exposed. On the basis of this con-
sideration we would expect no significant dif-
ference in the proportion of graduates from
those who first state they thought of nursing
before the age of 10 and those who first thought
of nursing at 10 or later. The results are in line
with this expectation.
We may carry this a step further. It seemed
to us that many of the persons who claimed
they thought of becoming nurses before the age
of 10 were quite vague and unclear about the
occasion when they first thought of becoming
nurses. To check whether such "vagueness"
might also connote an absence of definite com-
mitment to a nursing career we investigated
whether persons placing themselves in the
"under 10" category of the question concerning
first thinking about nursing also placed them-
selves in the "16 and over" category on the
question dealing with definite decision about
nursing.
TABLE 3. RELATION BETWEEN EARLY CONSIDERA-
TION OF NURSING AND DEFINITE DECISION TO STUDY
NURSING
Definite decisions to study nursing
Under 16 16 or over Tota
First thought of
becoming a nurse 11 24 35
before age 10 31.4% 68.6%
X2=4.114; corrected for continuity; significant at .05 level; 1 d.f.
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A significantly high proportion of those who
first thought of nursing before age 10 re-
gard their definite decisions as having been
made at age 16 or later. The latter age cate-
gory has been postulated to have a high pro-
portion of non-committed persons (in compar-
ison with the "under 16" age category). On
this basis it would seem that the "vagueness"
regarding the occasion of initial interest in
nursing bespeaks an absence of commitment.
But the evidence cannot be claimed to be con-
clusive.
An inspection of the distribution of students
by age of "definite decisions" and "first think-
not si
TABLE 4. DISTRIBUTION OF AGE. OF DEFINITE
DECISION TO STUDY NURSING BY AGE OF FIRST
THINKING ABOUT NURSING
Age at time of definite decision
Age at time of first
thinking of becoming Before At At Between
a nurse age 14 14 or 15 16 or 17 18-20
Before age of 10 .. 7 4 19 5
Between 10-13 . ... 3 7 2
At 14 or 15 . 1 9
At 16 or 17 . 6 2
Since 18 _. - 1
Those who report that they first thought of
nursing before the age of 10 tend to fall into
a bimodal pattern: One cluster of "definite deci-
sions" comes before the age of 14, and another
at 16 or 17 years of age. On the basis of our
thesis and data already presented we hold that
early "definite decisions" are positively related
to definite commitment, as indicated by gradua-
tion from the nursing program. We found that
five of the seven persons who "first thought" of
nursing before the age of 10 and "definitely de-
cided" before 14, graduated (71 percent). Only
nine of 19 (47 percent) persons who "first
thought" of nursing before 10 and "defiinitely
decided" at 16 or 17, graduated from nursing
school. We suggest that one cluster of the
bimodal distribution consists of persons who
made primarily "situationally-delimited" deci-
sions, whereas the other cluster consists of per-
sons who made relatively explicit "career" deci-
sions.
In summary, data has been presented in sup-
 154 SOCIAL FORCES
port of the thesis that is possible to demonstrate who has chosen nursing training.) Such
the existence of a type of career choice process "situationally delimited" actions are deemed to
which does not involve subjective career-orient- be basic ingredients in this process. It is felt
ed decisions. This formulation involved the that this conceptualization might fruitfully be
postulation of being able to distinguish between applied to areas other than career choice.
subjective career commitment and compliance The data for our formulations are based on a
with the institutionalized process leading to em- small sample-one professional school. Hence,
barkation upon a career.16 It also involved
it is probable that refinements in the thesis
postulation of a form of sequential process,
will need to be made as data from broader
where embarkation on a course of action-in
samples become available. In practical terms,
the present case, entry upon a particular oc-
understanding career commitments17 has ob-
cupational career-may be the end result of a
vious importance. Ultimately, one would wish
series of steps which, individually, are not
to be able to correlate patterns of commitment
teleologically oriented to that course of action.
which develop in the course of actual career
(Thus, for a particular young woman, the
decision to enter a nursing school and, sub- choice behavior with patterns of performance by
sequently, to be a nurse may rest primarily occupational practitioners. Also, a clear under-
upon following her immediate desire to be standing of occupational commitments might
in the proximity of young, eligible physicians, enable streamlining of career training pro-
or to remain close to a friend of her own sex cedures.

16 In this study, completion of professional train- 17 We hope that our paper, an essentially theore-
ing has been used as an index of subjective com-
mitment-and non-completion as an index of ab-
sence of such commitment. Yet it must be pointed
out that it is by no means claimed that all persons
who lack subjective commitment are likely to fail
to complete their professional training, and thus be
excluded from the ranks of professional prac-
titioners. What is claimed-and used in the present
study-is that there is a greater likelihood, statis-
tically, that those who lack a subjective commit-
ment will not complete their professional training.
tical discussion, will not lead to exaggerated
notions as to the actual proportion of non-commit-
ted persons in occupations. We make no claim to
have assessed what this proportion is in the nursing
profession. There is also indication that some
nursing students may loose commitment in the
course of the experience in nursing school. See Ida
Harper Simpson, "The Development of Professional
Self-Images among Student Nurses" (Unpublished
doctoral dissertation, University of North Carolina,
1956).

HEALTH PRACTICES AND EDUCATIONAL ASPIRATIONS

AS INDICATORS OF ACCULTURATION AND SOCIAL
CLASS AMONG THE EASTERN CHEROKEE
HARRIET J. KUPFERER
The Woman's College of the University of
North Carolina

ABSTRACT
Research among the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians would indicate that visible differences
among the people in matters of health and education are not only a result of acculturation.
Social class behavior seems to figure prominently as a factor in disparate behavior manifested
by nonconservative Cherokees.

I mplicit in most models of American Indian

acculturation seems to be the assumption
that "white" culture is homogeneous, there-
fore, as native people alter their premises, at-
* The research for this study was supported by
a grant from the National Institute of Mental
Health of the Department of Health, Education and
Welfare. Drafts of this paper were read by John
J. Honigmann, M. Elaine Burgess, and Richard
Lieban. The writer is grateful to them for their
cogent comments.

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