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Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire

Last Updated

Purpose

The purpose of the CDDQ is to identify difficulties associated with choosing a career.

Link to Instrument

Link to Instrument

Acronym CDDQ

Area of Assessment

Insight
Motivation
Positive Affect
Reasoning/Problem Solving
Self-efficacy
Strength
Vision & Perception

Assessment Type

Performance Measure

Administration Mode

Computer

Cost

Free

CDE Status

Not Applicable 

Populations

Non-Specific Patient Population

Key Descriptions

  • The original CDDQ by Gati et al. (1996) comprises 44 items. The revised version (2006) consists of 34 items: 32 career decision-making difficulty items and two unscored validity items.
  • The questionnaire measures three major categories of career decision difficulties:
    1) Lack of readiness: lack of motivation, indecisiveness, dysfunctional beliefs
    2) Lack of information: lack of information about the decision-making process, lack of information about the self, lack of information about the occupations, lack of information about ways of obtaining information.
    3) Inconsistent information: unreliable information, internal conflicts, external conflicts
  • For each item, the respondent is asked to indicate his or her preferences on a 9-point Likert-type scale (1 = does not describe me to 9 = describes me well).
  • The 10 category scores are averaged from the scores of the items from each category. Higher scores indicate more difficulty with career decision-making.

Number of Items

34

Equipment Required

  • Paper and pencil for standard administration
  • Laptop/PC, mouse, and internet connection for computerized administration

Time to Administer

5-8 minutes

Specified time range is for the online version; the range for the paper and pencil version is 7-12 minutes.

Required Training

No Training

Age Ranges

Adolescent

13 - 17

years

Adult

18 - 64

years

Instrument Reviewers

Dewi Anisa Qisti, Doctoral Student in Vocational Rehabilitation, University of Wisconsin-Madison under the direction of Lindsay Clark, PhD, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Medicine

ICF Domain

Activity
Participation

Measurement Domain

Emotion
Cognition

Professional Association Recommendation

None found -- last searched 4/30/2024.

Considerations

  • The administration of online instrument may not be accessible for people with low vision or blindness, poor internet access, or difficulties with technology.
  • No evidence-based implications for people with disabilities.
  • The CDDQ has been translated into 14 languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, Flemish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish, and Ugandan.

 

Non-Specific Patient Population

back to Populations

Standard Error of Measurement (SEM)

High School Students: (calculated from Babarovic & Sverko, 2019; n = 451 for paper and pencil version, 62.4% female, mean age = 18.04 (0.36); n = 568 for internet version, 71.7% female, mainly at 18 years old); administered with the CDDQ-R version in Croatian).

  • SEM for paper and pencil version (n = 451): 0.348
  • SEM for online version (n = 568): 0.345

University Students: (calculated from Osipow & Gati, 1998; n = 403; 194 male, 206 female, and 3 no indication; mean age = 18.9 (1.82) years; 76% freshmen; administered with the original CDDQ with 44 items)

  • SEM for entire group (n = 403): 0.289.

Adolescents and Young Adults: (calculated from Rossier et al., 2022; n = 1,748; 1,126 women, 622 men; mean age = 18.05 (3.01); administered with the French version of CDDQ)

  • SEM for French students (n = 935): 0.354
  • SEM for Swiss students (n = 643): 0.352
  • SEM for Swiss individuals seeking career counseling (n = 170): 0.411

Minimal Detectable Change (MDC)

High School Students: (calculated from Babarovic & Sverko, 2019)

  • MDC95 for pencil and paper version (n = 451): 0.96
  • MDC95 for online version (n = 568): 0.96

University Students: (Osipow & Gati, 1998)

  • MDC95 for all participants(n = 403): 0.80

General Adolescents and Young Adult: (Rossier et al., 2022)

  • MDC95 for French students (n = 935): 0.98
  • MDC95 for Swiss students(n =643): 0.98
  • MDC95 for Swiss Career Counseling (n = 170): 1.14

Normative Data

High School Students: (Babarovic & Sverko, 2019)

  • Mean CDDQ total for paper and pencil version (n = 451): 4.01 (SD = 1.16)
  • Mean CDDQ total for online test (n = 568): 4.35 (SD = 1.41)

Adolescents and Young Adults: (Rossier et al., 2022)

  • Mean CDDQ total for French students (n = 935): 3.85 (1.25)
  • Mean CDDQ total for Swiss students (n = 643): 3.69 (1.33)
  • Mean CDDQ total for Swiss Career Counseling (n = 170): 4.36 (1.06)

High School Students: (Gati & Saka, 2001a; adapted the 44-item CDDQ to the context of choosing a high school)

  • Mean CDDQ total in Study 1 (9th grade students; n = 579; 297 girls, 266 boys; 90% identified as native Israelis): 3.0 (0.97)
  • Mean CDDQ total in Study 2 (10th grade student; n = 787; 465 girls, 300 boys, 22 no report; 87% identified as native Israelis): 3.08 (0.94)
  • Mean CDDQ total in Study 3 (11th grade students; n = 477; 239 girls, 219 boys, 19 no report; 89% identified as native Israelis): 3.18 (0.93)

 

Test/Retest Reliability

University Students (Gati et al., 1996; n = 259; 147 men, 112 women; mean age = 20.68 (0.74) years; Israeli sample)

  • Excellent test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.80)

Internal Consistency

High School Students: (Babarovic & Sverko, 2019)

  • Excellent internal consistency for paper and pencil version of CDDQ total (Cronbach's alpha = 0.91*)
  • Excellent internal consistency for online version of CDDQ total (Cronbach's alpha = 0.94*)
  • Poor to Excellent internal consistency for subscales in the paper and pencil version (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.58 – 0.91*).
  • Poor to Excellent internal consistency for subscales in the online version (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.61 – 0.95*)

High School Students: (Gati & Saka, 2001a; n = 1,843)

  • Excellent internal consistency across three studies (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.90 - 0.91*)

Adolescents and Young Adults: (Rossier et al., 2022)

  • Excellent internal consistency for French students (Cronbach's alpha = 0.92*)
  • Excellent internal consistency for Swiss students (Cronbach's alpha = 0.93*)
  • Excellent internal consistency for Swiss career counseling students (Cronbach's alpha = 0.85)
  • Poor to Excellent internal consistency for the three major categories (Cronbach’s alpha ranged from .57 to .93*)

*Scores higher than 0.9 may indicate redundancy in the scale questions.

Criterion Validity (Predictive/Concurrent)

Concurrent Validity

General Adolescents and Young Adults: (Kleiman & Gati, 2004; n = 510 for English version, mean age = 20.92 (4.80) years, 345 women and 165 men; n = 10,000 for Hebrew version, mean age = 22.57 (3.80) years; 6415 women and 3585 men)

  • Excellent correlations between CDDQ in online English version and online Hebrew version (r = .93*)

 University Students: (Osipow & Gati, 1998; n = 403)

  • Excellent correlation with Career Decision Scale (r = 0.77)
  • Poor correlation with Career Decision Making Self Efficacy Scale (r = -0.50)

Construct Validity

Convergent validity:

High School Students: (Babarovic & Sverko, 2019; n = 451)

  • Adequate to Excellent correlations between three major clusters (r = 0.43, 0.44, 0.70)

 

Discriminant validity:

High School Students: (Babarovic & Sverko, 2019; n = 451)

  • Adequate to Excellent correlation between CDDQ major clusters of difficulties and career maturity as measured by Student Career Construction Inventory (SCCI) (r = -.10 to -.31).

Bibliography

Babarović, T., & Šverko, I. (2019). The validity of Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire in Croatia. Journal of Career Assessment, 27(3), 391–407. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072717748960 

Gati, I., Krausz, M., & Osipow, S. H. (1996). A taxonomy of difficulties in career decision making. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 43(4), 510–526.  https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0022-0167.43.4.510  

Gati, I., & Saka, N. (2001a). High school students’ career-related decision-making difficulties. Journal of Counseling and Development, 79(3), 331. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.2001.tb01978.x

Kleiman, T., & Gati, I. (2004). Challenges of internet-based assessment: Measuring career decision-making difficulties. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 37(1), 41–55.  https://doi.org/10.1080/07481756.2004.11909749 

Osipow, S. H., & Gati, I. (1998). Construct and concurrent validity of the Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire. Journal of Career Assessment, 6(3), 347-364.  https://doi.org/10.1177/106907279800600305 

Rossier, J., Rochat, S., Sovet, L., & Bernaud, J.-L. (2022). Validation of a French version of the Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire: Relationships With Self-Esteem and Self-Efficacy. Journal of Career Development, 49(4), 906–921. https://doi.org/10.1177/08948453211009975

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