Paradnikė, Kristina

In the contemporary world, career counseling professionals need to focus on skills that help people bring benefit from positive chances and minimize the damage of negative events. The Planned Happenstance Career Inventory (PHCI) was created to measure these skills. The main aim of the present study was to test the dimensionality and concurrent validity of the PHCI scores in a Lithuanian student sample. A heterogeneous sample of undergraduates participated in the study (N ¼ 1,064). Confirmatory factor analyses revealed four interrelated planned happenstance skill factors. A fifth––the flexibility factor––was found to function in a separate manner. To further test for concurrent validity, the PHCI scores were correlated with a range of positive career development variables, namely, goal adjustment, academic major satisfaction, and vocational identity. The results supported the hypothesized links, thereby providing evidence on the validity of PHCI scores among Lithuanian students.

In addition to acquiring occupation-specific knowledge and skills, students need to develop a set of career self-management skills - or resources - that helps them to successfully maneuver the various career-related challenges they face and that stimulate their well-being, engagement, and performance in studying tasks. In the current study, we apply the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory in an educational setting and suggest that career adaptability and career competencies are important career resources that predict both life satisfaction and academic performance via students' satisfaction with the choice of their major and study engagement. Undergraduate students (N = 672) from nine different colleges and universities in Lithuania participated in the study. The results revealed that career adaptability and career competencies were positively linked to students' life satisfaction, both directly and via study engagement. In addition, these career resources were positively, yet indirectly, related to academic performance via study engagement. Overall, the results suggest that career resources contribute to study engagement, life satisfaction, and academic performance. The results of our study further support JD-R theorizing and its applicability in student samples. Further theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Background: Scholars are highlighting the importance of adaptive career behaviors and resources that people could employ in directing their own career development across the lifespan. New constructs emerge with the intention to help the individuals to manage their careers. One of the most promising constructs is career adaptability, which includes such resources as concern, control, curiosity, and confidence. This study attempts to link those resources and study engagement. Engagement has been previously employed as an indicator of occupational well-being of both employees and students. Moreover, study engagement is considered to be adaptation result by some authors. Possibly, study engagement might be one of many positive career-related outcomes linked to career adaptability. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to analyze the links between college students’ career adaptability and study engagement. Method: the sample consisted of 273 college students (Mage = 20.71, SDage = 2.89). Career Adapt-Abilities Scale-Short Form (CAAS-SF; Maggiori et al., 2015), the short version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale – student version (UWES-S-9; Schaufeli et al., 2002; Schaufeli et al., 2006) and a questionnaire for demographic variables were used in the study. Results: Career adaptability resources, namely, concern, control, curiosity, and confidence, were linked to study engagement expressed as vigor, dedication and absorption. Concern and confidence were the only significant predictors of study engagement dimensions. Conclusion: The results support the importance of career adaptability resources for college students’ engagement.

The aim of the paper is to briefly describe and compare the main individual career resources and competencies proposed in the most acknowledged contemporary career frameworks. The findings of literature review suggest some valuable insights for future research and practice in the field of career management.