The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships among students' performance goals, vocational identity and career-exploration behaviours and to examine the effects of their personal attributes on these variables.
Based on the social cognitive view of the school-to-work transition proposed by Lent, Hackett and Brown (1999), the study presents a comprehensive conceptual framework for career counselling, with special emphasis on enhancing adolescents' career-exploration behaviours and work-related motivations and attitudes. The career readiness model proposed in this study deals with interactions among a number of variables that affect career decision-making self-efficacy, career decision-making outcome expectations, career decision-making intentions, career-exploration behaviour, vocational identity and performance goals. It explains and illustrates the paths and factors that play a significant part in the development of career readiness.
The target population was secondary fourth form and secondary sixth form students in Hong Kong. A total of 1216 students from 14 secondary schools participated in this study. Gender had a more significant impact on scores than the effects of different backgrounds. Male respondents generally had lower mean scores than female respondents in most variables. It was also found that the standard deviations of the male students' scores from were greater than those of female students. Apart from gender differences, there were no significant differences among students from various grade levels and streams of study. The results support the hypothesis that career decision-making self-efficacy in plays a significant role in career decision-making outcome expectations, career decision-making intentions, exploration behaviour, performance goals and vocational identity of secondary school students. Most of the structural paths in the model were found to be significant.
The study concludes that students' self-efficacy in career

The study proposed a career readiness model with five career-related attributes of which the relationship between career maturity and gender role ideology was mediated by interdependent self-construal and career decision-making self-efficacy, while the relationship between locus of control and career maturity was mediated by career decision-making self-efficacy. The model was tested by path analysis, using a sample of 502 Chinese Secondary Four students in Hong Kong. The statistical results of the career readiness model suggested satisfactory goodness of fit, with 15% of the total variation in career maturity explained by the career-related attributes in combination. Gender role ideology had a direct positive effect on career maturity, with the indirect effect mediated by interdependent self-construal and career decisionmaking self-efficacy. Locus of control had a direct negative effect on career maturity and an indirect effect mediated by career decision-making self-efficacy. With the exception of the effects of gender role ideology on career decision-making selfefficacy and interdependent self-construal on career maturity, all the other hypothesized paths were supported by the data. After controlling the effects of the three background variables of gender, participation in career-related activities and participation in extra-curricular activities on the career readiness model, the estimated path coefficients of the five career-related attributes with the inclusion or exclusion of the background variables were statistically consistent.

The financial tsunami started in September 2008 and soon spread all over the world. University students graduating in 2009 may therefore experience difficulties in job hunting. In the face of such adversity at the start of their careers, fresh graduates should take positive actions (e.g., undertake further studies) or consider options (e.g., take a part-time or summer job, or join internship programmes) that will enable them to accumulate work experiences and life skills. This paper outlines views on internship programmes, quoting a small-scale study on how students from Lingnan University perceived their internship experiences, and discusses the possible effects of internship programmes amidst the financial tsunami.
金融海嘯席捲全球，令大學畢業生面對甫畢業但未能立刻就業的危機。職位空缺大幅減少，畢業生如未能爭取到一份正職亦不必灰心；反之，更要勇敢面對逆境，把握機會裝備自己，如做兼職和參加實習，累積工作經驗和技巧。本文簡述一般人對實習計劃的看法，並引用嶺南大學向曾參與實習計劃的學生所進行的一個小型調查，討論大學生實習計劃的成果。
[Copyright of Journal of Youth Studies is the property of The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups at http://yrc.hkfyg.org.hk/]

This article describes the development of an instrument - the Career and Talent Development Self-Efficacy Scale (CTD-SES) - for assessing students' self-efficacy in applying life skills essential for personal talent development, acquisition of positive work habits, and career exploration. In Study 1, data were obtained from a large sample of Chinese middle-school students (N=15,113) in Grades 7-9 in Hong Kong. The CTD-SES is an 18-item questionnaire with subscales containing items that address students' orientations toward developing their own talents, acquiring and applying positive work habits, and exploring their career possibilities. Evidence is provided for internal consistency, temporal stability, and factor structure of the CTD-SES. Goodness of fit statistics provided support for a three-primary-factor-plus-higher-factor model, and this solution was used in the statistical analyses. The data also indicated that students with plans for university study reported significantly higher scores than those without on all three domains of career and talent development. In Study 2 (N=308) Grade 10 high-ability students' scores in CTD-SES were correlated with scores in career decision self-efficacy and academic performance. The development and validation of CTD-SES is the first step toward investigating career exploration, work habits, and talent development among Asian middle-school adolescents.
[Copyright of High Ability Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13598139.2010.488089]