variables related to career choice and occupational attainment. Oth-
ers, such as Musgrave (1967), offered sociologically based theories of
occupational choice. The status attainment model of Blau and Dun-
can (1967) was an attempt to include what the authors termed cog-
nitive variables,particularly mental ability and social-psychological
processes, into the prediction of occupational attainment.
It is clear that there is no shortage of theories of occupational
choice and career development. A significant portion of this book
is devoted to the theories now considered most influential in terms
of stimulating research and improving practice. Obviously, this is a
subjective judgment, but there are guidelines for making this deter-
mination. These guidelines are discussed later in the chapter.
How to Judge the Value of Career
Choice and Development Theory
How can you judge the worth of a theory? Krumboltz (1994), using
a map metaphor, suggests that a good theory, like a well-drawn map,
provides a representation of reality—in this case the reality of
career choice and development. Krumboltz believes that career
development theories, also like maps, contain distortions—the
chief one being that they oversimplify the phenomenon being
described to facilitate understanding of it. Another obvious source
of distortion is the view of the theorist or theorists; theories are no
more than a description of the nature of reality, pieced together by
a single person or a team of persons.
In order to construct a useful (good) map of the career choice
and development process, theorists have many tasks to perform.
Chief among these tasks is the selection and definition of constructs
that are to be used to describe the phenomena involved in measur-
able terms. Constructs are measurable if researchers can observe
them or can construct instruments that can be used to infer their
existence.
In the process of selecting and defining constructs, theorists
who use existing theories of human functioning as the basis for their
INTRODUCTION TO THEORIES OF CAREER DEVELOPMENT AND CHOICE 7