Editorial Comment:

Focus

Although computer-assisted career guidance systems are widely used in schools and universities, evaluations of the effects of CACG on the career development and maturity of users are sorely lacking in the literature.

Although there is some evidence to suggest that using CACG systems increases maturity in high school and college students, there is an absence of research designed to evaluate the effects of CACG systems on the career maturity of middle school students.

This study evaluates the effect of computer-assisted career guidance system on the career maturity of 38 students in a rural middle school. It investigates whether a relatively brief interaction with the program affects the career maturity of such students. This is a small-scale randomised study where individuals were assigned to an experimental group receiving DISCOVER and a control group who received oral and written business information skills lessons.

Career maturity was assessed by Screening form A-2 of the Career Maturity Inventory's Attitude Scale. Including 50 true false items representing a variety of attitudes towards the career decision-making process. Higher scores indicate more readily developed attitudes towards career development and readiness to make realistic educational and vocational choices.

Findings

A treatment condition x time of testing analysis of variance for career maturity yielded a significant interaction. Main effects were not revealed for treatment condition and time of testing. Results indicated that although pre-test career maturity scores were similar among participants in the treatment and the control group, post-test scores were significantly higher for participants in the treatment group than for the participants in the control group.

Findings suggest that middle school students attitudes toward career decision-making process may become more age appropriate after using DISCOVER. Such a result highlights one of the potential benefits of CACG, namely that significant changes in a students readiness to make realistic educational and vocational decisions can be realised in a relatively brief period of time. Counsellors who use DISCOVER and other CACG systems at the middle-junior high school level are encouraged to evaluate the effectiveness of program use on the career maturity of their students.

Although a randomised study, the sample size is small and only briefly described meaning sample bias could occur. There are also concerns about the lack of description of the sampling frame and recruitment methods. The use of a single measure is a weakness, and although the study authors attempted to control from contamination it cannot be known whether this was actually effective.