Rehab Measures Database
  1. Rehabilitation Measures Database
  2. Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire

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

rehabilitation measures

More Instruments Like This

We have reviewed more than 500 instruments for use with a number of diagnoses including stroke, spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury among several others.

updated Apr 1, 2024

Iowa Scales of Personality...

read more

updated Feb 12, 2024

Millon Behavioral Medicine...

read more

updated Jan 9, 2024

Performance Assessment of ...

read more