Career Self-Efficacy as a Means of Understanding the Gap Between Career Attainment and Opportunity for the U.S. Government Black Engineer
Open AccessThis study extended the research on career self-efficacy (Hackett & Betz, 1981) from college students to the workplace. Along the way it assessed the contribution of career self-efficacy as a means of understanding the gap between career attainment and opportunity among black engineers in the U.S. government workplace. Data from this survey of 131 black engineers in a large Department of Defense engineering organization suggested that career self-efficacy assessment provides data that complement other existing human resource information and assist in understanding the gap between attainment and opportunity using the social cognitive career theory model (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994). The data also showed that the total career self-efficacy of the black engineer in the surveyed organization was high, as were the subscale scores: self-appraisal, occupational information gathering, goal setting, planning, and problem solving. While increased depth of interracial friendships was linked to career self-efficacy, the data showed that workplace relationships with one's immediate supervisor and with one's coworkers were even more important and that a black engineer being able to say to a white friend what he or she really thought was linked to career self-efficacy.To address the changing demographic of the U.S. engineering workplace between now and 2060, the percentage of black engineers must increase to be more representative of their percentage in the general population. With the study showing that a large number of black engineers are considering leaving engineering, the workplace environment must be addressed.
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Hofacker_gwu_0075A_12192.pdf | 2018-01-16 | Open Access |
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