Career Maturity Inventory

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December 12, 2022

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Purpose

The Career Maturity Inventory (CMI) is a standardized measure designed to assess the maturity of adolescents and young adults’ career choice attitudes and competence.

Link to Instrument

Link to instrument

Acronym CMI, CMI-R (1995), CMI-C (2011)

Area of Assessment

General Health & Development
Mental Functions
Activities & Participation

Assessment Type

Performance Measure

Administration Mode

Paper & Pencil

Cost

Free

Cost Description

Refer to Savickas & Porfeli (2011) for administration, interpretation, and use in counseling of the CMI-C.

Mixed Conditions

Career maturity can be defined as readiness to cope with vocational developmental tasks (Savickas, 1984).
The 1978 CMI includes 2 components: the Attitude Scale and the Competence Scale. There are 3 options for the Attitude Scale: the 75-item Counseling Form B-1, the 50-item Attitude Scale Form A-1 and 50-item Screening Form A-2. The five subscales of the Atitude Scale include Orientation to Career Choice, Involvement in Career Choice, Independence in Career Choice, Compromise in Career Choice, and Decisiveness in Career Choice. The response format is True or False The 100-item Competence Scale of the 1978 CMI is divided into five parts and yields five raw scores rather than a single competence test score. The five subscales are Self-Appraisal, Occupational Information, Goal Selection, Planning, and Problem Solving. Each scale consists of 20 multiple-choice items with 5 options.
The CMI-R published in 1995 has 50 items: 25 on the Attitude Scale and 25 on the Competence Test. The CMI-R yields scores for the Attitude Scale, Competence Test, and overall Career Maturity. Response is in the binary-option format: Agree or Disagree.
The most recent Career Maturity Inventory, CMI Form C (CMI-C), is a 24-item scale that measures change along four subscales of concern, consultation, curiosity, and confidence (Savickas & Porfeli, 2011).
The CMI-C generates 5 scores: total score for career choice readiness, 3 scores for the Concern, Curiosity, and Confidence Scales, and score for the Consultation Scale. The response to items is either Agree or Disagree.
Scores are calculated by adding the correct responses to items. Higher scores suggest a need for exploration in depth; lower scores suggest a need for exploration in breadth.
The CMI-C is available in the Counselling Form (for counselors and educators) and the Screening Form (for researchers and academic/career orientation directors).

Number of Items

CMI: ranges between 150-175 items
CMI-R: 50 items (25 Attitude Scale items and 25 Competence Test items)
CMI-C: 24 items

CMI-R (1978): Attitude Scale and Competence Test booklets/answer sheets and pencil for test takers; CMI administration/use manual and a timepiece for test administrator.
CMI-C (2011): Test and pencil for test taker; article by Savickas & Porfeli (2011) for test administrator

15 minutes

Time indicated is for CMI-C. The time required to administer the CMI is 2.5 hours (30 minutes for the Attitude Scale and 2 hours for the Competence Scale) and for the CMI-R it is about 30 minutes.

Required Training

Reading an Article/Manual

Adolescents

13 - 17

years

Instrument Reviewers

Sara Park, MS, CRC, LPC-IT, Doctoral Student in Vocational Rehabilitation, University of Wisconsin-Madison under the direction of Lindsay Clark, PhD, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Medicine

ICF Domain

Participation

Measurement Domain

Activities of Daily Living
Cognition

Considerations

CMI scores generally increase as a function of age and grade level
CMI scores have a ceiling effect once reaching adulthood
Female students report higher scores during high school when age is held constant for gender comparison, which indicates that career maturity is reached earlier for female students
Asian students’ scores tended to be lower as Asian students’ career decision-making is more heavily influenced by external influences such as family
The 1978 CMI is recommended for both research and practice, including 1) studying career development, 2) screening for career immaturity, 3) assessing guidance needs, 4) evaluating career education, and 5) testing in career counseling
The CMI-R is referred as an adult version of the 1978 CMI. However, the revision was more conceptual than empirical (Savickas & Porfeli, 2011)
CMI-C is used for teaching adolescents the process of career decision making and fostering career maturity.

Standard Error of Measurement (SEM)

US High School Students (calculated from Busacca & Taber, 2002; n = 157; 72 males, 85 females; mean age = 16.07 (1.18) years; administered with the CMI-R)

SEM for total group (n = 157): 2.948
SEM for female participants (n = 85): 2.436
SEM for male participants (n = 82): 3.329
SEM for the Attitude Scale (n = 157): 1.974
SEM for the Competence Test (n = 157): 2.155

US High School Students (calculated from Savickas & Porfeli, 2011; n = 453; 216 females, 237 males; administered with the CMI-C)

SEM for total group (n = 453): 1.601
SEM for the Concern Scale (n = 453): 0.869
SEM for the Consultation Scale (n = 453): 0.947
SEM for the Curiosity Scale (n = 453): 1.005
SEM for the Confidence Scale (n = 453): 0.924

Minimal Detectable Change (MDC)

US High School Students (Busacca & Taber, 2002)

MDC95 for total group (n = 157): 8.17
MDC95 for female participants (n = 85): 6.75
MDC95 for male participants (n = 72): 9.23
MDC95 for the Attitude Scale (n = 157): 5.47
MDC95 for the Competence Test (n = 157): 5.97

US High School Students (calculated from Savickas & Porfeli, 2011; n = 453; 216 females, 237 males; administered with the CMI-C)

MDC95 for total group (n = 453): 4.44
MDC95 for the Concern Scale (n = 453): 2.41
MDC95 for the Consultation Scale (n = 453): 2.62
MDC95 for the Curiosity Scale (n = 453): 2.78
MDC95 for the Confidence Scale (n = 453): 2.56

Normative Data

US High School Students: (Savickas & Porfeli, 2011)

Mean CMI-C score for total sample (n = 453) = 9.88 (4.28)
Mean CMI-C score for males (n = 237) = 10.4 (4.36)
Mean CMI-C score for females (n = 216) = 9.31 (4.13)

Interrater/Intrarater Reliability

US High School Students: (Stowe, 1985; n = 97; 52 males, 45 females)

Excellent interrater reliability for the Decisiveness, Involvement, Independence, and Compromise Scales of the 1978 CMI Counseling Form B-1: (ICC = 0.91, 0.75, 0.89, and 0.78, respectively)
Adequate interrater reliability for the Orientation Scale of the 1978 CMI Counseling Form B-1: (ICC = 0.59)

Internal Consistency

US High School Students: (Busacca & Taber, 2002)

Poor internal consistency for the CMI-R Attitude Scale (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.54).
Poor internal consistency for the CMI-R Consistency Scale (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.52).
Poor internal consistency for the CMI-R total (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.61)

US High School Students: (Savickas & Porfeli, 2011)

Excellent internal consistency for CMI-C total (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.86)
Adequate internal consistency for CMI-C Curiosity Scale (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.74)
Adequate internal consistency for CMI-C Confidence Scale (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.78)
Poor internal consistency for CMI-C Concern Scale (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.62)
Poor internal consistency for CMI-C Consultation Scale (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.69)

US High School Students: (Stowe, 1985)

Adequate internal consistency for the CMI Counseling Form B-1 overall and Orientation Subscale: (KR-20 reliability coefficient = 0.71 and 0.74, respectively).
Poor internal consistency for the CMI Counseling Form B-1 Decisiveness, Involvement, Independence, and Compromise Subscales (KR-20 reliability coefficient = 0.69, 0.60, 0.60, and 0.29, respectively)

Criterion Validity (Predictive/Concurrent)

Concurrent validity:

US High School Students: (Savickas & Porfeli, 2011)

Excellent correlation of the CMI-C with Vocational Identity Scale (VIS; r = 0.84)
Excellent correlation of the CMI-C with the 1978 CMI Form A-1 (r = 0.75).
Excellent correlation of the 1978 CMI Form A with VIS (r = 0.61)

US High School Students: (Busacca & Taber, 2002)

Poor correlation of the CMI-R Attitude Scale with the Occupational Plans Questionnaire (OPQ) Commitment and Consistency Subscales for males (r = 0.23 and 0.27, respectively)
Adequate correlation of the CMI-R Attitude Scale with the OPQ Significance Subscale and OPQ Total for males (r = 0.34 and 0.35)
Poor correlation of the CMI-R Competence Test with the OPQ Significance Subscale for males (r = 0.24)
Poor correlation of the CMI-R Attitude Scale with OPQ Experience Subscale for females (r = 0.25)
Poor correlation of the CMI-R Attitude Scale with OPQ Commitment, Experience, Consistency, Significance, and OPQ Total score for the total sample (r = 0.19, 0.18, 0.22, 0.27, and 0.28, respectively)

Construct Validity

Convergent validity:

US High School Students: (Jepsen & Prediger, 1981; n = 237 11th grade students; female = 52%)

Adequate correlation of the Attitude Scale (Form A-2) of the 1978 CMI with the Extent of Planning Scale of the Career Development Inventory (r = 0.37)

Floor/Ceiling Effects

Researchers predicted and reported a ceiling effect over young adulthood (Savickas, 1984).

Responsiveness

Students who engaged in career counseling had, on average, a 1.30 CMI raw score increase. This difference is significant at p < 0.02 (Crites, 1978a).

Bibliography

Busacca, L. A., & Taber, B. J. (2002). The Career Maturity Inventory-Revised: A Preliminary Psychometric Investigation. Journal of Career Assessment, 10(4), 441–455. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072702238406

Crites, J. O. (1978a). Administration and use manual for the Career Maturity Inventory (2nd ed.). Monterey, CA: CTB/McGraw-Hill.

Crites, J. O., & Savickas, M. L. (1996). Revision of the Career Maturity Inventory. Journal of Career Assessment, 4(2), 131–138. https://doi.org/10.1177/106907279600400202

Jepsen, D. A., & Prediger, D. J. (1981). Dimensions of Adolescent Career Development: A Multi-Instrument Analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 19, 350-368.

Savickas, M. L. (1984). Career maturity: The construct and its measurement. Vocational Guidance Quarterly, 32(4), 222–231. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2164-585X.1984.tb01585.x

Savickas, M. L., & Porfeli, E. J. (2011). Revision of the Career Maturity Inventory: The Adaptability Form. Journal of Career Assessment, 19(4), 355–374. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072711409342

Stowe, R. W. (1985). Convergent and discriminant validity of Crites’s Career Maturity Inventory Attitude Scale, Counseling Form B-1. Educational and Psychological Measurement 45(4), 763-770.