internal, unstable (such as effort) or external (luck or task simplic-
ity) factors. This can be accomplished by asking clients at each step
of the skill acquisition process (or as they review past experiences)
for their perceived reasons for task success. Nonadaptive attributions
can be challenged, for instance, by having clients generate and eval-
uate alternative interpretations for their performance successes.
Illustrative Developmental Applications
Negotiating the school-to-work transition process and intervening
with students who are at risk for academic failure offer challenging
yet socially important forums for SCCT-derived applications. Con-
troversy over the role of schools in preparing workers has stimulated
renewed interest among educators, researchers, and policymakers in
the school-to-work transition process (Blustein et al., 2000). In par-
ticular, concerns have been raised about the adequacy of students’
preparation to enter the workforce, ability to translate their educa-
tional skills into occupational domains, and subsequent productiv-
ity and dependability as workers. Although a variety of solutions,
such as job skills training and youth apprenticeship programs, have
been offered, such programs have often overlooked the literature on
students’ developmental needs and on career choice and work
adjustment (Lent & Worthington, 1999).
We believe that school-to-work (and career education) programs
may be enhanced by incorporating the basic, empirically supported
tenets of a variety of career theories. SCCT, for example, would
emphasize a variety of intervention elements tailored to students’
developmental levels, such as designing skills programs with self-
efficacy enhancement (as well as skill development) in mind, attend-
ing to the acquisition of accurate outcome expectations, fostering
goal-setting skills, and developing multiple facets of self-efficacy in
relation to skills (such as communication, conscientiousness, and
coping behaviors) that may be required for successful work transition.
Also critical, from our perspective, would be efforts to identify barriers
to work transition, along with strategies to negotiate them, and
to cultivate opportunity structures such as social support. Lent,
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