Identifying subgroups of career decision-making difficulties in Chinese college students: a latent profile analysis

This study aimed to identify meaningful facets of career decision-making difficulties in the Chinese context and explore the effects of study engagement and ego-identity on subtypes of career decision-making difficulties. We applied latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify career decision-making difficulties facets using the 11 difficulty scale scores of the Chinese revised version of the Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire (CDDQ-C) among two Chinese samples (analysis sample: N = 593, age 21.51 ± 1.49; replication sample N = 344, age 21.22 ± 1.30). Five career decision-making difficulties profiles were identified and replicated: negligible (10.46%), lack of readiness (7.59%), moderate (47.05%), lack of information–general indecisiveness (7.76%), and salient (27.15%). In addition, we found that these profiles differed in socio-demographic characteristics, including gender, major, and grade. Using the logistic regression methods, results revealed that relationships between every profile and study engagement were more significant than those with ego-identity. Overall, the present study’s findings suggested that Chinese college students’ nature of career decision-making difficulties are heterogeneous, which will facilitate tailoring counseling interventions more sensitively for the specific client.

This study was approved by the school of psychology, South China Normal University Human Research Ethics Committee for Non-Clinical Faculties (SCNU-PSY-2021-179).