social cognitive career theory case study

Exploring Residents' Experience of Career Development Scholarship Tracks: A Qualitative Case Study Using Social Cognitive Career Theory

Affiliations.

• 1 Department of Psychiatry, Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine, Glen Oaks, New York, USA.
• 2 Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, San Francisco, California, USA.
• PMID: 32394735
• DOI: 10.1080/10401334.2020.1751637

Problem: Trainees enter graduate medical education with professional aspirations that often extend beyond the role of clinician to roles such as educator, innovator, leader, advocate, or researcher. Many residency programs have implemented academic tracks to support career development in these areas. With the exception of research tracks, these tracks generally do not include significant longitudinal protected time and often rely upon 'extra-curricular' effort and possess insufficient structure, mentorship, and accountability. Most prior studies of non-research scholarship tracks have not been theory driven and do not explore in depth the experience of residents who participate. Approach: To address this gap in the literature, we conducted a qualitative case study informed by Social Cognitive Career Theory to explore the professional identity development of residents who participated in a non-research scholarship track that incorporates recommended best practices. The track, Pathways to Expertise Program, incorporates features of successful research tracks: protected time, longitudinal experience, mentorship, platforms for recognition, and accountability. Participants from the first three cohorts were interviewed at the time of their graduation (2017-2019). Semi-structured interviews were conducted, transcribed, and independently coded. Social Cognitive Career Theory informed the organization of codes into themes. Context: The Pathways to Expertise Program was implemented in a psychiatry residency training program in a large urban academic teaching hospital. Impact: Fifteen residents entered Pathways to Expertise Program during the study period and all 15 participated in the study. Fourteen completed the program and presented their projects at the department grand rounds. For dissemination, 12 presented their project findings at one or more national meetings in the form of a poster (20 distributed across 11 residents), workshop (six distributed across four residents), or presentation (two across two residents). Six residents accounted for a total of seven first author publications in peer reviewed journals. All participants described how their self-efficacy increased as a result of new skills (e.g., content, methodology, and scientific communication), mentorship (e.g., content and process guidance), peer and broader support (e.g., small group supervision), persuasive communications (e.g., recognition both locally and nationally), and positive emotional reactions (e.g., triumph). The residents also described expecting compelling benefits (e.g., stronger application for fellowship and expanded career opportunities). Participants indicated that the experience influenced their career goals and how they perceived their professional identities. Lessons Learned: These findings suggest that a longitudinal academic track that incorporates features of successful research tracks (protected time, mentorship, peer support, and accountability for deliverables) can be instrumental in forming and maturing professional identities for non-clinical roles. These tracks can accomplish several important goals, including enhancing resilience via identity formation around passion and purpose and meeting society's need for physicians who are engaged in inquiry and innovation. Implications for the design of academic tracks in general are explored.

Keywords: career development; graduate medical education; professional identity formation; scholarly concentration; social cognitive career theory; tracks.

• Career Mobility*
• Education, Medical, Graduate*
• Fellowships and Scholarships*
• Interviews as Topic
• Models, Theoretical
• Qualitative Research

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The perspectives of social cognitive career theory approach in current times

1 Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China

Haiyan Deng

2 School of Foreign Studies, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, China

Introduction

Due to the rapid changes as a response to the technological innovations in the current society, the original relationship between organizations and employees has become unstable, and a new model of boundaryless career has been established (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996 ). The boundaryless career model, characterized by complexity, non-linearity, and unpredictability, emphasizes the influence of the environment on individuals. Among the career theories, Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) first added contextual factors to the original model (Lent et al., 1994 ). Therefore, SCCT seems to be more applicable to the current boundaryless era.

Considering the role of individual cognitive variables (self-efficacy and outcome expectations), learning experiences, and personal interests on career development, SCCT focuses on not only environmental but also individual factors that influence one's career decision making (Lent et al., 1994 ). The SCCT has good applicability in school career education guidance and provides a comprehensive framework for explaining and predicting career development (Lent and Brown, 2019 ). The SCCT framework provides a theoretical foundation for career coaching. Compared to other career theories, SCCT offers a new perspective on guiding adolescents' interest formation, professional (career) choice, and performance, with potential for cross-cultural research (Lent et al., 2013 ).

Therefore, this study aims to present the advantages and challenges of SCCT and propose future research trends. The SCCT approach has the following advantages: firstly, it provides a systematic explanation for career development; secondly, it responds to the development of the times; finally, it focuses on special groups in terms of career counseling. SCCT approach also faces some challenges: lack of qualitative research methods, lack of qualitative assessment methods, and lack of intervention approach. The contribution of the study adds the number of targeted recommendations and strategies as follows: (1) Explore qualitative and quantitative research methods for SCCT; (2) Explore qualitative assessment methods for SCCT; (3) Develop multiple forms of SCCT approach.

Social cognitive career theory

Derived from Albert Bandura's Self-Efficacy Theory and General Social Cognitive Theory (Lent, 2013 ), SCCT develops into a comprehensive career theory that argues that an individual's career path results from the interaction between multiple career elements since it was proposed by Lent et al. ( 1994 ). General social cognitive theory assumes that people are the product of a dynamic interaction between external environmental factors, internal subjectivity factors, as well as past and present behavior (Bandura, 1986 ). Self-efficacy depends on four main factors: personal performance accomplishments, vicarious learning, social persuasion, and physiological and affective states (Bandura, 1997 ). Drawing on Bandura's three-factor causal model, SCCT constructs a three-factor interaction model of career, in which Self-efficacy (Can I do this?), outcome expectations (what will happen if I do this?) and personal goals (how much do I want to do this?) are the three core concepts (Buthelezi et al., 2010 ). Rooted in learning experiences influenced by personal successes and failures experiences, vicarious learning, verbal persuasion, and affective states (Lent et al., 2017 ), self-efficacy and outcome expectations greatly influence one's interests, which in turn influence career choices and achievement performance (Lent et al., 1989 ).

Lent et al. ( 1994 ) indicated that contextual variables influence individuals' career interests and choices by shaping learning experiences in SCCT. The contextual variables of SCCT include the background contextual affordance and contextual influences proximal to choice behavior that affects career choice behavior. Among them, the background contextual affordance helps individuals to form interests and self-perceptions, while contextual influences play a role in the career decisions (Lent et al., 1994 ). The two types of contextual variables contain elements that overlap with each other, such as family and other social factors, these factors contribute to an individual's academic and career performance differently at different stages. More social support and specific personality traits predict more occupationally engaged behavior (Hirschi et al., 2011 ). The Big Five personality stands out in previous studies on personal traits. It is a significant predictor of an individual's choice behavior. Schaub and Tokar ( 2005 ) verified the relationship between Big Five personality, career learning experiences, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and interest. The study showed that personality affects career interest directly and indirectly through career learning experiences and self-efficacy. When students present themselves as more extroverted, they seem more likely to choose a career, and when they held favorable level of conscientiousness, they experience less discomfort with decision making. Extraversion and neuroticism may influence people's interpretation of how they deal with past decisions (Penn and Lent, 2019 ).

The theory introduces the mechanism of the interaction of individual, behavioral and environmental factors into the career field. Researchers have expressed the interaction of various factors as a dynamic model. Social cognitive career theory initially included three interrelated models: the career interest development model, the choice-making model, and the career performance and persistence model (Lent et al., 1994 ), and was later expanded to include two additional models, one focusing on satisfaction and well-being model in educational and vocational settings (Lent and Brown, 2008 ), and the other the career self-management model, which emphasizes the process of career self-management across the lifespan (Lent and Brown, 2013 ).

Based on the framework of SCCT, the researcher summarized the techniques and methods of career interventions, which mainly include expanding choice options, coping with barriers, building support, goal setting and self-regulation, facilitating work performance, and promoting work satisfaction (Lent, 2013 ). The purpose of the SCCT intervention is to develop and modify self-efficacy related to career choices and interests, to overcome barriers related to choice and success, and to define personal goals by expanding interests and promoting choices (Barnard et al., 2008 ). With the theoretical framework, Miles and Naidoo ( 2016 ) examined the impact of the SCCT career program, which proves to positively affect high school students' career decision-making self-efficacy.

Chartrand and Rose ( 1996 ) were the first to suggest the application of SCCT to populations at risk for employment and occupational barriers. SCCT helps immigrant high school students to prevent dropouts, promote academic success, and foster college and career readiness through a combination of academic support and increased critical consciousness (McWhirter et al., 2019 ). A SCCT-based career education curriculum was designed for rural high school students which positively affected their career information about postsecondary planning and career exploration, and their planning for futures (Gibbons et al., 2019 ). Ali et al. ( 2019 ) evaluated the effectiveness of a sociopolitical development component in a SCCT career intervention program among rural middle school students, and found that there was limited support for the effectiveness of spd-injected SCCT interventions. Yuen et al. ( 2022 ) tested a SCCT-based career intervention program for middle school students with mild special educational needs and found it impacted the students' career, personal and social development self-efficacy, and acquisition of a sense of meaning in life. Silva et al. ( 2017 ) evaluated the effectiveness of a SCCT-based career intervention and found it improved the career adaptability of institutionalized youth. Also, Glessner et al. ( 2017 ) found that a workshop on the online Florida CHOICES program and a campus visit increased semirural school student career and college self-efficacy. The study supported the practice of engagement in a virtual- and community-based intervention as a teaching strategy.

Advantages of social cognitive career theory

Provide a systematic explanation for career development.

SCCT values the role of psychological factors (interests, abilities, values), social factors (e.g., socioeconomic status, gender, race), and economic factors (e.g., employment opportunities, training opportunities, etc.) (Long et al., 2002 ). By doing so, SCCT attempts to create an integrated framework that overcomes the limitations of traditional theory that separates psychological, social, and economic factors. SCCT more systematically elucidates how the interaction between core cognitive, personal, and environmental variables contributes to an individual's career development.

Respond to the development of the times

Lent et al. ( 1994 ) constructed the SCCT framework, which argues that interest arises from self-efficacy and outcome expectations. Self-efficacy and outcome expectations change dynamically as learning experiences change, and a developmental perspective is used to view career development. The theory emphasizes that goal selection is dynamic and that environmental factors influence goal setting, in line with the current boundaryless era.

Traditional career theories ignore the social environment factors, emphasize the matching of personality traits with careers, and ignore the influence of the environment on career development. SCCT emphasizes individual and environmental changes and views career choice as a relatively dynamic system as time changes, which proves to be more adaptive to the contemporary society than traditional career theories.

Focus on special groups of career counseling

SCCT proposes that environmental factors impact individual career development and directly influence the formation of learning experiences. It extends to special groups and offers possibilities and strategies for career counseling for special groups. Much related research has focused on special groups, such as individuals with serious mental health disorders (Fabian, 2000 ), institutionalized youth (Silva et al., 2017 ), immigrant high school students (McWhirter et al., 2019 ), rural school students (Ali et al., 2019 ; Gibbons et al., 2019 ), and secondary school students with mild special educational needs (Yuen et al., 2022 ).

Challenges to social cognitive career theory

Lack of qualitative research methods for scct.

Previous studies tend to use quantitative methods to validate the SCCT framework (Lent et al., 2017 ; Penn and Lent, 2019 ), while few studies explore the career selection process adopting qualitative research approaches. At the same time, SCCT focuses on self-efficacy, outcome expectation, and learning experience when explaining career choice and development. Among these factors, which one plays the most important role, and to what degree they can predict career performance is unclear. This impedes the application of SCCT to the educational settings.

Lack of qualitative assessment methods for SCCT

SCCT emphasizes the role of learning experiences, environmental factors, and interests, which consequently leads to the ambiguity of the evaluation criteria, especially the qualitative evaluation methods. Some researchers conducted a quantitative assessment method by Career Decision Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (Miles and Naidoo, 2016 ; Glessner et al., 2017 ).

Among the few studies that used qualitative assessments, one study conducted interviews with five teachers and social workers (Yuen et al., 2022 ). There is no uniform criteria for qualitative evaluation. However, qualitative assessment methods may be complicated, especially for special groups.

Lack of intervention approach for SCCT

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was difficult to conduct a follow-up survey to identify the long-term effects of the SCCT Project (Yuen et al., 2022 ). On the other hand, most of the studies on SCCT have focused on specific groups, and it is difficult to expand the findings to the general population.

However, researchers proposed a Multi-Tiered System of Support for students: the first tier of the framework is the curriculum to promote mental health for all students. The second is group counseling for some students, which meets the developmental needs to prevent problems and cope with the confusion of students' growth. The third is the intervention for individual students to address their special mental health problems (Fang et al., 2014 ; Sulkowski and Michael, 2014 ). The SCCT interventions mostly take the form of the workshop (Ali et al., 2019 ; McWhirter et al., 2019 ), and individual counseling may be more appropriate for special groups. In summary, multiple forms of SCCT interventions need to be developed.

Explore qualitative and quantitative research methods for SCCT

Sheu et al. ( 2010 ) used meta-analytic path analyses to synthesize data from 1981 to 2008 and found that both self-efficacy and outcome expectations are significant predictors of interests, and that interests partially mediate the effect of self-efficacy and outcome expectations on choice goals. However, inconsistent findings were shown by Garriott et al. ( 2014 ), which examined the relations of high school students' learning experiences, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and interests. The study showed that self-efficacy significantly predicted interests, but did not predict outcome expectations. In addition, outcome expectations did not predict interests (Garriott et al., 2014 ). Although SCCT provides an important theoretical basis for explaining and predicting academics and careers, research on the relationship between learning experiences, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and interests has not yet yielded consistent findings.

Qualitative and quantitative research methods deserve to be combined in the field of career (Pan and Sun, 2018 ). As previous studies on SCCT mainly used quantitative methods, future research should combine qualitative and quantitative methods to explore the relationship between the different variables of SCCT.

Explore qualitative assessment methods for SCCT

Lent and Brown ( 2020 ) systematically introduced a three-factor (content-process-context, CPC) assessment model to determine what issues exist and how to prioritize them in counseling. The use of assessments early in the counseling can gauge the need in terms of decision-making processes, contextual barriers, and/or choice of content options. Future studies on the evaluation of SCCT can be conducted on the following three factors. (1) Content: Assessment can be based on the variables included in the SCCT, namely interest, outcome expectancy, self-efficacy, learning experience. For example, for learning experiences, assessments are made in terms of achievement events, alternative experiences, emotional state, and social encouragement. (2) Process: To identify difficulties with the decision-making process, such as choice anxiety, Interpersonal conflict, and low decision-making self-efficacy. (3) Context: To assess critical environmental characteristics that can aid or impede selection, such as contextual supports, contextual barriers, and factors related to the selection. In terms of sequencing the assessment, it may be careful to collect decision-making process and contextual information either prior to or along with content data, as a rush to evaluate interests may ignore personal or contextual factors affecting responses to the assessment instrument, the understanding of results, or the willing to engage in exploration or to make a decision (Lent and Brown, 2020 ).

Develop multiple forms of the SCCT approach

With the development of the Internet, the online career network system can effectively offset the shortcomings of traditional intervention. The computer is accessible anytime and anywhere without physical contact, so the problems in the conventional intervention model can be solved online. With the development of computer networks, career intervention has evolved into an online format. SCCT is the framework for developing mobile phone-based intervention (Ho et al., 2020 ).

As an important research direction, SCCT intervention can be designed around career guidance and counseling in school. In addition, the primary forms of career intervention are career class, group career counseling, workshop, computer network system, and individual counseling (Whiston et al., 2017 ). Regarding the student development guidance model, the school career development is designed on three levels. The first level of career intervention is open to all students and is designed with a practical career curriculum according to the psychological developmental characteristics. On the second level, students with specific needs, identified on the first level, are chosen for group counseling. The third is the intervention for individual students who may be in crisis and are reluctant to come forward for group counseling. To sum up, the school career intervention system is based on the three levels of career development.

Future research should develop multiple interventions and evaluate the effects of specific career interventions (e.g., self-service, computer network systems, career counseling, etc.) on different groups so as to develop systems for SCCT interventions.

Based on General Social Cognitive Theory and Self-Efficacy Theory, SCCT is an effective form of career counseling in the boundaryless era. While SCCT has strong implications for career counseling and education, it also has deficiencies in research methods, evaluation methods and intervention methods. Therefore, this study offers some suggestions on how to address these challenges: Firstly, future research should combine qualitative and quantitative methods to explore the relationship between the variables of SCCT. Secondly, future research need to explore qualitative assessment methods for SCCT. Finally, researchers are hoped to develop diversified intervention methods for SCCT so that students with different needs all can obtain career development.

Author contributions

DW and XL contributed to design of the study. DW wrote the manuscript. DW and HD modified the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank and extend our sincere gratitude to the reviewers for their support in this study.

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Research Article

The applicability of social cognitive career theory in predicting life satisfaction of university students: A meta-analytic path analysis

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Current address: Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

Affiliation Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Software, Writing – review & editing

• Roziah Mohd Rasdi, 
• Seyedali Ahrari

• Published: August 21, 2020
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237838
• Reader Comments

Derived from the social cognitive career theory (SCCT), the present study developed a model for the empirical examination of factors affecting the life satisfaction of university students. A random-effects meta-analysis of zero-order correlations observed the results of 16 studies (20 samples, n = 7,967), and associations among the SCCT variables were examined by using a meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) according to a pooled correlation matrix. An alternative model was offered and then assessed. The findings showed a satisfactory fit of the new model as compared to the original SCCT. The results demonstrated support for the alternative model of SCCT in predicting life satisfaction. The present study suggested that researchers should embrace this alternative model when synthesizing SCCT factors. Limitations and avenues for future research were put forward for further consideration.

Citation: Mohd Rasdi R, Ahrari S (2020) The applicability of social cognitive career theory in predicting life satisfaction of university students: A meta-analytic path analysis. PLoS ONE 15(8): e0237838. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237838

Editor: Sarah Hope Lincoln, Harvard University, UNITED STATES

Received: November 20, 2019; Accepted: August 4, 2020; Published: August 21, 2020

Copyright: © 2020 Mohd Rasdi, Ahrari. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: There are some legal restrictions on sharing the data for the present study. Comprehensive Meta-Analysis Software (CMA) is not a free and open access software. The authors asked our faculty computer lab to use this software. Thus, the person in charge has some legal limitations on sharing the data publicly. However, a person affiliated with the faculty can respond and send data upon request from academics or institutes via official procedures. The request must be made through the institutional email address so that she can verify it. For more information and permission, please contact: Dr. Zeinab Zaremohzzabieh Faculty of Educational Studies Universiti Putra Malaysia [email protected] H/P: +168754721.

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The university-to-work transition is a vital step in the creation of a job identity for graduates. During this period, some can face this transition confidently, while others experience hesitancy, insecurity, and hopelessness [ 1 ]. Pierceall and Keim [ 2 ] discovered that 87% of university students experience moderate to high levels of stress during this stage of life. This stress leads to many undesirable results such as anxiety, isolation, and low self-confidence [ 3 ], which might influence their mental health. Therefore, Lange [ 4 ] stressed that career uncertainty, as an apparent risk and fear of prospect joblessness, has a negative consequence on people’s well-being.

In this regard, previous research has emphasized that career development experience is a vital source to facilitate university students from their unclear future, tackle unfavorable working situations, and therefore increase their life satisfaction [ 5 ]. These studies also proposed that university students who are self-assured in their career orientation are satisfied with life [ 6 ]. From this standpoint, it is important to examine how students experience concomitant successes and failures at the university-to-work shift. Therefore, the present study investigates how these can affect students’ life satisfaction. For this purpose, the study draws on the concept of life satisfaction from Diener and colleagues [ 7 ], who described it as the subjective evaluation and overall cognitive judgment of life.

Life satisfaction is a main factor in the work domain, a supreme goal in human existence after basic needs, and has numerous further positive components such as being an active social player and being in good health [ 8 ]. Work and organizational psychologists are recognizing life satisfaction as an important issue as it may both cause career associated consequences and be affected by career-related aspects [ 9 ]. Results of previous research have led researchers to assume that career development is potentially linked to general views about life [ 10 ]. Therefore, life satisfaction (LS) is the desired aim for both an individual and an organization.

To date, LS of individuals, particularly university students, continues to be diminished in the career-related literature. Consequently, there is a lack of theoretical base around university students’ LS through the university-to-work process and in facilitating their career growth since some fundamental theories [ 11 , 12 ] may not effectively comprise the environmental and contextual elements that contribute to the effects of career development exposure on LS [ 13 ]. As a multistage and leading career model, the social cognitive career theory (SCCT) [ 14 ] has revealed to be comprehensive in explaining the distinctive career development practices of different people [ 15 – 18 ]. The findings of these studies have constantly shown meaningful associations between predictor constructs in the SCCT and life satisfaction (see Fig 1 ). Blustein [ 19 ] affirmed SCCT as “the most important theory in career development which offers a powerful clarifying notion for scholars” (p. 350). It is proposed that human traits, social-cognitive factors, along with measurable success in other domains of life, should be expected for LS [ 20 ].

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Nevertheless, the extent of the theoretical constructs of SCCT in predicting life satisfaction among university students is inadequate. Findings regarding socio-cognitive factors in predicting LS are conflicting. For instance, some have declared that personality features toward life satisfaction are more important than domain satisfaction [ 21 ], while other researchers disagreed [ 22 ]. These diverse results regarding SCCT necessitate a meta-analytic review.

A meta-analysis offers an organized tactic for studying empirical literature to synthesize results through studies. The structural equation modeling (SEM) is a technique that is normally employed for confirming whether the theory of hypothetical models fits the data [ 23 ]. The approach of merging meta-analysis and SEM could help create theory-based interferences to foster life satisfaction. Several past research has studied SCCT by using meta-analysis. Many of them have investigated a particular outcome, such as academic performance [ 24 ], choice goals [ 25 ], and career functioning [ 26 ]. Nevertheless, they examined the efficiency of SCCT variables in predicting how individuals perform actions for others’ benefits instead of individual benefits, such as life satisfaction. Thus, this study aims to test SCCT and how it can predict the life satisfaction of university students by using meta-analytic path analysis.

Literature review

SCCT is a model proposed by Lent [ 14 ] to clarify the conditions in which: (a) career hobbies are established; (b) academic and vocational options are chosen; (c) career determination is performed. It has received extensive consideration from researchers whereby many of them have placed the model on the career growth of school and university students [ 27 ]. The key notion has been that though career choice actions are performed through the lifetime, the concepts are most noticeable through the late teenage years and early adulthood when people are planning to join the workforce [ 14 ]. For this reason, not much attention has been paid to the value of this theory to predict outcomes for youths who are in the middle of the university-to-work transition. The university-to-work transition refers to on-the-job training, vocational training, service-learning agreements, or other programs designed to prepare university students to enter the workforce.

Lent and Brown [ 28 ] later extended SCCT to a satisfaction model. While the extended SCCT employs the term work satisfaction, this is meant to generally comprise other forms of satisfaction as well. Lent, Brown, and Hackett [ 29 ] suggested that SCCT, with its attention to both individual and background variables, can be a useful model to describe the university-to-work transition. The SCCT satisfaction model also includes self-efficacy (SE), outcome expectations (OEs), goal progress (GP), personality traits (PTs), domain satisfaction (DS), and environmental supports (ESs), which predict life satisfaction. Besides, this point needs to be reminded that, self-efficacy means a personal judgment of "how well one can execute courses of action required to deal with future situations [ 100 ]. Also, domain satisfaction reflects the extent to which objective conditions in a particular area of life match individuals’ respective needs or aspirations [ 79 ].

On the other hand, Lent and Brown [ 30 ] stated that general measures of SCCT variables may have limited utility, in that these variables require to be deliberated in domain-specific contexts. Thus, they warned academics to utilize domain-specific measures in any examinations of extended SCCT.

Previous studies found that life satisfaction was significantly associated with DS in the context of university-to-work transition, thus providing logic for embracing life satisfaction as an outcome construct [ 31 ]. Lent and Brown [ 28 ] mentioned that Heller, Watson, and Ilies’ [ 32 ] research is one of the bases for the satisfaction model. According to Heller and colleagues [ 32 ], the relative pros of top-down (person-based) or bottom-up (situation-based) approaches toward explaining subjective well-being in binary routes are as follows: (a) they studied associations between PTs, DS measures, and life satisfaction; and (b) they created and examined three rival hypothetical models. The initial model was named as “straight effects” top-down model, wherein PTs were each linked directly to DS and life satisfaction. The second model, named the personality top-down model, illustrated the PTs as having individual links directly to life satisfaction. Lastly, the third model, the combining model, offered direct associations between PTs with every satisfaction domain (marital, job, and life). Besides, DS linked directly to life satisfaction. This is the model as a blend of the top-down and bottom-up approaches toward describing subjective well-being [ 32 ]. Their study supported the notion that life satisfaction and DS are related constructs.

Goal progress, domain satisfaction, personality traits, and life satisfaction

Discussions on GP and DS on life satisfaction of university students have been directly or indirectly debated since the original work of Lent and Brown [ 30 ]. GP represents a third type of cognitive variable. According to Latham, Mawritz, and Locke [ 33 ], having goals and experiencing growth toward one’s goals directs to bigger stages of satisfaction. Sheldon and Kasser’s [ 34 ] study supported the relationship between perceived GP and satisfaction. For university students, academic GP was predictive of enrolment and persistence in academic majors [ 35 ]. Lent [ 20 ] stated that goals may encourage an individual’s feeling of satisfaction by activating optimistic responses in reaction to his/her perceived progress on an appreciated goal. On the contrary, the lack of such support, or the existence of background barriers, is possible to block GP and decrease life satisfaction [ 30 ]. Besides, Lent [ 36 ] showed that DS (e.g., academic satisfaction) was the most consistent predictor of life satisfaction. Previous literature has commonly believed that an additive association among DS and life satisfaction does exist [ 37 ]. Lent and Brown [ 28 ] characterized life satisfaction as having “trait-like features” (p. 243). Thus, they conceptualized PTs as inputs to the satisfaction model. PTs can influence people’s life satisfaction [ 38 ]. Therefore:

• Hypothesis 1a : GP is positively linked to life satisfaction.
• Hypothesis 1b: DS is positively linked to life satisfaction.
• Hypothesis 1c: PTs are positively linked to life satisfaction.

Environmental supports, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, goal progress, personality traits, and domain satisfaction

ESs as contextual affordances can facilitate an individual’s vocational option and growth [ 35 ]. SCCT is concerned with ESs as a predictor of DS. Gibbons and Shoffner [ 39 ] acclaimed SCCT as most promising as it embraces constructs that explain disparities in environmental opportunities along with individuals’ beliefs about the environment. Researchers have found support for including ESs in the social cognitive model of the domain in university students’ sample [ 40 ]. According to Lent and Brown [ 30 ], ESs as reinforcement, modeling, and positive feedback provide assets to individuals that can increase the sense of satisfaction [ 20 ]. Besides, persons differ in their SE regarding the behaviors needed in several academic and career domains. SE beliefs are pretty dynamic and are specific to specific activity domains. SE as a fundamental part of one’s life provides a vital advantage in terms of social and career development [ 41 ]. Lent’s [ 20 ] research supported the relationship between OEs and DS. The SCCT model forecasts satisfaction in the social domain through straight routes from the combined effects of social cognitive constructs [ 36 ]. Further study is required to define the association between OEs and DS. Lent [ 36 ] discovered that GP was predictive of DS. According to Wiese and Freund [ 42 ], career development depends partly on external factors but is also determined by personal goals. The meta-analysis of Klug and Maier [ 43 ] revealed a strong connection between GP and satisfaction in a particular domain. Moreover, Lent [ 44 ] proposed that factors like PTs influence DS. Lent’s normative model of well-being (see Fig 1 ) offers cognitive, behavioral, environmental, and personality elements that regulate individuals’ DS [ 36 , 45 ]. Hence:

• Hypothesis 2a: ESs are positively linked to DS.
• Hypothesis 2b: SE is positively linked to DS.
• Hypothesis 2c: OEs are positively linked to DS.
• Hypothesis 2d: GP is positively linked to DS.
• Hypothesis 2e: PTs are positively linked to DS.

Environmental supports, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and goal progress

Lent [ 46 ] uncovered that ESs, which comprise goal-relevant assets, modeling, and inspiration, is associated with affecting GP ( r = .23). Furthermore, Lent [ 14 ] found that SE will directly affect the kinds of interests that a person will grow. Later, Lent [ 47 ] stated that SE is a predictor of GP for undergraduates because they anticipate to obtain favorable results when pursuing actions at which they think are effective. Higher SE appraisals are also associated with GP, regardless of barriers. Moreover, OEs also play a key role in motivating individuals toward their goals. According to the SCCT model, OEs and SE together shape motivation [ 14 ]. Satisfaction can be viewed as somewhat a function of individuals’ positive OEs about that possible result from pursuing an esteemed goal [ 48 ]. Therefore:

• Hypothesis 3a: ESs are positively linked to GP.
• Hypothesis 3b: SE is positively linked to GP.
• Hypothesis 3c: OEs are positively linked to GP.

Personality traits, environmental supports, and self-efficacy

In the career development context, SE refers to persons’ confidence in their skill to succeed in creating academic or vocational choices. Scholars highlighted the vitality of examining the initial phase of career development because it is an important stage when PTs and career SE are founded [ 49 ]. Thus, they have started to call for the combination of PTs into any model assessing the backgrounds of academic and career options. PTs may influence vocational confidence in a parallel way to interests [ 14 ]. Although limited studies have examined the relationships between PTs and the vocational and career constructs [ 50 ], it is still difficult to illustrate strong deductions regarding the effects of PTs due to the use of varying scales. More recently, scholars have pursued to study if and how PTs influence the cognitive constructs involved in the career development progressions of SE [ 22 ]. In this context, PTs are also considered as direct antecedents of SE in which both PTs and SE have proven to be significant antecedents of academic and career success [ 51 ]. Studies showed that ESs are indirectly linked to life satisfaction through SE and OEs [ 28 ]. In their longitudinal study, Hou, Wu, and Liu [ 52 ] found that environmental and social supports predict SE among Chinese students. Therefore:

• Hypothesis 4a: PTs are positively linked to SE.
• Hypothesis 4b: ESs are positively linked to SE.

Environmental supports, self-efficacy, and outcome expectations

OEs are individuals’ attitudes about the effects of their behaviors and can be influenced by previous experiences, skills, and performance in addition to social supports [ 14 ]. According to Franco [ 53 ], OEs do not happen in a vacuum and socio-cultural environments may affect these expectations. In the SCCT model, OEs are informed by vicarious environmental factors (e.g., social support) and they later play a central role in predicting career options [ 54 ]. Kelly [ 27 ] found that ESs are unique contributors to OEs. Hui, Yuen, and Chen’s study [ 55 ] also validated the link between ESs and OEs. According to Garriott [ 56 ], ES predicted college OEs in first-and non-first-generation students. Bandura [ 57 ] posited that SE is another significant source of OEs, which means higher confidence in a person’s skill of completing certain tasks would result in more positive perceptions of the outcomes. According to Ali, McWhirter, and Chronister [ 58 ], vocational/educational SE beliefs are accounted for a meaningful total of variance in vocational and educational OEs. Therefore:

• Hypothesis 5a: ESs are positively related to OEs.
• Hypothesis 5b: SE is positively related to OEs.

Personality traits and environmental supports

PTs are unique qualities that are the epitome of an individual. They are individuals’ habitual patterns of behavior, temperament, and emotion [ 59 ]. According to the social cognitive theory and symbolic interactionism, humans are not passive agents; however, as these traditions also suggest, individuals’ PTs are actively shaped by the environment [ 60 ]. Previous studies similarly addressed the roles of PTs and ESs, such as background experiences [ 61 ]. PTs in the SCCT model may comprise characteristics like trait positive/negative effects and are hypothesized to predict ESs [ 56 ]. Furthermore, PTs have been shown to predict ESs [ 44 ]. Longitudinal investigations have provided support for this relationship [ 62 ]. It means that PTs can provide the motivational impulses or the motivational blocks to use or not to use environmental and social supports and thus to improve or reduce performance [ 63 ]. Therefore:

• Hypothesis 6a: PTs are positively related to ESs.

Materials and methods

Search strategy for identifying studies.

The authors of the present study perused PsycNet, ProQuest, and ScienceDirect, to find related research published between January 1, 2004, and December 31, 2018. The combination of words employed to search these records were life, academic, and domain satisfaction, outcome expectations, self-efficacy, environmental and social supports, and social cognitive career theory. Studies met the inclusion criteria if they: (a) employed the SCCT as a theoretical basis, and (b) supplied quantitative data allowing for the calculation of correlation ( r ) and/or effect sizes among the SCCT variables.

As well as exploring journal databases, additional search tactics were used to enlarge the number of studies. The authors investigated the websites of well-known journals with a history of releasing higher education and career studies. They also inspected article references and searched for authors by name. Abstracts were assessed according to the inclusion criteria. First, they excluded duplicated research, studies that involved school students (i.e., young people before entering higher education) as participants, and qualitative studies. Second, studies were excluded if they did not meet all of the inclusion standards, or if inadequate data were available for calculation. Sixteen studies (20 samples) were chosen for the meta-analytic path analysis (see Fig 2 ). Finally, Cooper’s [ 64 ] method of the unstructured search was employed by using Google Scholar and Google for identifying more relevant studies (see Table 1 ).

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Data extraction

Data were obtained by a predesigned protocol that was based on the ‘Joanna Briggs Institute’ [ 65 ] and ‘Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis’ (PRISMA) regulations [ 66 ]. It was re-examined and filtered by an expert group including a higher education expert and a career development university lecturer. The obtained outcome data comprised a correlation matrix of SCCT variables, which were ESs, SE, OEs, GP, DS, PTs, and life satisfaction. The sample size ( n ) of every study and the observed association of SCCT variables were gathered to execute the meta-analytic path analysis.

Quality assessment

The sixteen studies that achieved the inclusion criteria were evaluated individually by two researchers for methodology characteristic by the ‘Quality Assessment and Validity Tool for Correlational Studies’ (QAVTCS) [ 67 ]. The quality assessment tool was employed to check four key parts of the study: design, sample selection, instrument, and data analysis. Thirteen standards were assessed, with a total of fourteen possible scores. Build on the designated score, studies were categorized as low (0–4), moderate (5–9), or high (10–14) quality. Inconsistencies in the scores were settled after the debate between the two researchers. This resulted in sixteen studies rated as high. The rest did not achieve most of the criteria listed in the QAVTCS, so it was scored as 3 which was of low-level quality and was omitted from additional review. Therefore, all sixteen studies were kept for analysis (see Table 2 ).

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Data abstraction

The present study utilized a strategy for data abstraction. The subsequent data were obtained: authors, publication year, aim, country, variables, sample size, and mean age (see Table 3 for further detail).

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Data analysis

Meta-analytic method.

In a meta-analysis, a summary effect is provided that explains the overall trend. An important subject is then the selection among fixed or random-effects models. As found by Field and Gillett [ 82 ], scholars must decide on the proper model earlier based on the included studies and the preferred deductions. According to Borenstein [ 83 ], the random-effects model permits that the true effect size may differ from study to study (normally distributed). Particularly, random-effect models are more suitable when studies are carried out by diverse academics in different contexts so that effect sizes can vary randomly [ 84 – 86 ]. By contrast, the fixed-effect model depends on the notion that all researches in the meta-analysis have a shared effect size. In this study, a random-effects model was then used since most of the included studies were executed separately, with several samples drawn from various respondents (see Table 4 ). Furthermore, the researchers managed to conduct heterogeneity tests of effect sizes through their studies, such as 95% confidence interval (CI), Cochran's Q statistic, and I 2 statistic [ 87 ]. The 95% CI of every estimate was made around the true score correlation. In particular, this study used the Q statistic and the I2 statistic, as I 2 was more appropriate for meta-analyses with fewer studies [ 88 ]. The I 2 statistic was employed to determine the degree of heterogeneity. The estimated heterogeneity variances explained in Table 5 . The range of I 2 is from 79.297 to 94.891. This proposes that the correlations are fairly heterogeneous.

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Path analysis

In running a path analysis by maximum-likelihood estimate, the authors used the created correlation matrix. Consequently, means and standard deviations for each construct were set to 0 and 1, respectively. According to the revealed corrected meta-analyzed correlations, the meta-analytic path analyses by AMOS 23.0 software were conducted to assess SCCT and the antecedents of life satisfaction. As in past meta-analyses that have also employed additional path analyses [ 89 ], the harmonic mean of the sample sizes underpinning each effect size described in the path models was used as the input sample size. Model fit can be evaluated by goodness-of-fit indices; like chi-square/degree of freedom ratio (CMIN/DF), comparative fit index (CFI), goodness-of-fit index (GFI), normed fit index (NFI), and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA).

Study characteristics

Built on this study’s criteria, sixteen studies (20 samples) in the datasets that met the inclusion criteria provided a total of 7,967 respondents. Altogether, four dissertations, one conference paper, and eleven journal articles met the study’s criteria. The oldest study included in this research was published in 2005, while the latest study was printed in 2018. The included research were from eleven countries, where the majority of them were conducted in the United States (US) ( k = 8). The sample sizes ranged from 111 [ 73 ] and 1,187 [ 71 ].

Total relationship between SCCT constructs

The table below shows the correlation between the six constructs of SCCT. Every average weighted correlation ( r + ) was meaningfully varied from zero ( p < .001). Through the studies, life satisfaction had a low correlation with GP ( r + = .291). All 16 correlations revealed significant heterogeneity between studies, with all Q statistics being significant. The relationship strength between SCCT constructs was low to medium, with an effect size ranging from .150 to .647. All dimensions of SCCT, though, were significantly linked (i.e., 95% CI excluded 0). The I 2 statistics proposed that the correlations between all SCCT constructs proposed high heterogeneity, as stated by Higgins [ 90 ].

Meta-analysis correlation matrix

The results were organized into a correlation matrix (see Table 6 ), which facilitated to create a base for subsequent path analyses. The associations between life satisfaction and three SCCT constructs were positive (ranging from 0.291 to 0.436), while the correlations of all SCCT constructs were positive. Thus, life satisfaction revealed a low to medium association with three SCCT constructs, i.e., DS, PT, and GP.

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The study examined the SCCT model by using MASEM. Confidence intervals from the meta-analytic correlation matrix are exhibited in Table 5 . For model fit, Kline [ 91 ] inspired the use of model fit indices, with chi-square/degree of freedom ratio (CMIN/DF), comparative-fit index (CFI), goodness-of-fit index (GFI), and normed fit index (NFI). A rule of thumb for the fit indices is that values at 0.90 or above show acceptable fit [ 92 ]. Moreover, the model may be considered as satisfactory if the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) is between 0.03 and 0.08.

Structural model

The fit indices of the original SCCT structural model (Model I) were not satisfactory and did not fit the data across most fit indices, CMIN/DF = 4718.698, p < 0.01, IFI = .668, CFI = .666, NFI = .654, GFI = .841, and RMSEA = .473. As specified by Kline [ 92 ], the model suggested an unsuitable fit for the model. After removing GP and OEs, the second model (Model II) includes ESs, SE, DS, PTs, and life satisfaction. As revealed in Table 7 , the model was satisfactory and considered as acceptable. This model offered better fit indices: CMIN/DF = 3102.582, p < 0.01, IFI = 0.903, CFI = 0.903, NFI = .904, GFI = .907, and RMSEA = 0.078. Following Kline [ 92 ], the model suggested an acceptable and appropriate fit (see Fig 3 ).

All paths are significant at p < .01.

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As revealed in Fig 4 , DS is positively associated to life satisfaction ( β = .296, p -value = 0.000). Therefore, hypothesis 1b is supported. This finding is in line with Loewe’s [ 93 ] study, which proved DS as an antecedent of life satisfaction. The structural model showed that PTs positively predicted life satisfaction ( β = .310, p -value = 0.000). Thus, hypothesis 1c is supported. This is in line with Ali [ 94 ] that PTs may also be key indicators of other facets of individuals’ life, including satisfaction with life. ESs also have a positive correlation with DS ( β = .328, p -value = 0.000). Therefore, hypothesis 2a is supported. Thus, the results are consistent with Lent’s [ 68 ] study, which indicated social cognitive variables predicted DS. The data in Fig 4 showed that SE ( β = .338, p -value = 0.000) was positively linked to DS. Hence, hypothesis 2b is supported. It seems that SE could lead to greater DS among the university students. The present study’s findings can confirm Lent’s [ 68 ] finding a positive association between SE and DS ( r = .43). This study revealed that PTs were predictors of DS ( β = .182, p -value = 0.000). Therefore, hypothesis 2e is accepted. This finding supports Watson and Clark’s [ 95 ] conclusion that PTs and DS are related. The structural model showed that PTs ( β = .333, p -value = 0.000) were positively associated with SE. Hence, hypothesis 4a is accepted. The findings confirm Navarro’s [ 96 ] results, indicating that PTs of engineering students have a direct effect on their SE. As revealed in Fig 4 , ESs were significant in justifying the proportion of SE ( β = .226, p -value = 0.000). Thus, hypothesis 4b is accepted. This is in line with Lent and Brown [ 28 ], whereby ESs help SE to shape one’s adaptive career behavior (e.g., by helping to regulate skill use and help persistence). The current results showed that PTs could significantly influence ESs ( β = .331, p -value = 0.000). Thus, hypothesis 6a is accepted. This study found similar results with Lent’s [ 45 ] study that showed PTs as affective dispositions and dynamic traits, which continually interacted with ESs. Moreover, ESs, SE, and PTs jointly explained 41.9% variance in DS; and PTs and DS explained 26% of the variance in life satisfaction.

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Discussion and conclusions

The study assessed the applicability of SCCT in predicting life satisfaction and also the inter-correlations of SCCT factors by employing a meta-analysis with path analysis. The results did not entirely support the initial SCCT satisfaction model [ 20 ]. Thus, GP and OEs are not a factor in the context of higher education students. This confirmed Lent’s [ 44 ] study of the non-significant association between OEs and DS. This inconsistency over OEs as explained by Lent [ 44 ] is one of the potential issues related to OE measure and/or receiving direct rewards is opposite to the rewards that are expected by students in the long-term, as a greater predictor of DS. The present study excluded OEs (due to model unfit) and this decision is in agreement with Lent [ 44 ] and Singley [ 62 ] when eliminating OEs. Moreover, the current study also reached the model fit (Model II) by excluding GP. The present results are consistent with Lent’s [ 68 ] study, which confirmed the association between GP and DS, but not between GP and ESs. University student samples, which comprised the participants of the present study, might be less likely to testify their engagement in effective pursuit of their goals or unable to be responsive to the types of support (e.g., social, physical, fiscal aspects) that they obtained from the environment, for instance, due to insufficient savings, access to an incomplete variety of career role models, or lack of instrumental support with university applications.

However, with a modified version of the model by removing two constructs, the model was fit for the data. All eight remaining paths created meaningful coefficients, varying in magnitude from small to moderate. The results also yielded theoretically unexpected findings; PTs’ role and their importance in explaining all remaining constructs in the modified SCCT model. The findings proposed that PTs and socio-cognitive factors might not signify distinct, separate causes of satisfaction [ 97 ]. Although it is not yet clear that PTs are flexible to modification by psychological intervention, the findings are in line with results from different contexts such as the employees' selection literature that PTs augment overall cognitive ability as main antecedents of life satisfaction [ 98 ]. The findings demonstrated the need to incorporate dispositional and socio-cognitive factors and this will be one of the key missions of novel career development theories. Besides, flexible SE proposes a possible objective for intervention attempts since it is realized that a necessary level of ability is also needed to succeed in life satisfaction [ 99 ]. SE beliefs to some extent, but not critically, are seen as inspiring students to take on gradually challenging tasks for which success is possible [ 100 ]. Findings of the alternative SCCT (Model II) offered support for the view that ESs direct paths to SE as well as DS.

Limitations and avenues for future studies

The present study provided an organized theory-driven analysis of the studies on SCCT as a path to those embarking on future studies and developing theoretical descriptions. Some limitations must be considered and their possible implications on the findings are deliberated. It is vital to mention that this study like other meta-analyses is limited due to the availability of obtainable findings [ 101 ]. When authors do not report adequate statistics in primary studies, meta-analysts cannot include these studies in a MASEM; thus, the information from those primary studies is essentially lost. Meta-analytic results may, though, be anticipated to deliver more strong discoveries than those of single studies. Another limitation of meta-analyses is the bias of publications, i.e., nonpublished studies (e.g., unpublished research studies excluded from the study). Although many factors were incorporated in this study, the number of studies inspected and/or the sample size (n) of these studies was not high because various studies inspected the effect sizes for more than one outcome, and as a result of analyzing the data by using a multi-level modeling approach [ 102 ]. Besides, due to the significant heterogeneity of the findings, the accurateness of random effect size was reduced and the small datasets added to this study limited the study’s ability to test moderators that may support the analysis. In the case of insufficient data for conducting a moderator inspection, the particular association was omitted [ 103 ]. On the other hand, it is admitted that this was not inevitably the case for concept mapping. However, it is vital to say that in these cases, the studies examined were experimental, gave themselves better recognizing effects, should these exist [ 104 ]. Besides, meta-analyses are insensitive to causal directions and not sufficient to infer causality [ 105 ]; consequently, longitudinal or experimental and quasi-experimental studies are essential to determine causal associations and make more assured generalizations about the strength of SCCT associations [ 106 ]. This is due to the reason that longitudinal studies can capture the relationship among antecedents of LS over time–instead of only as simultaneous predictors of LS at a single time. Along with longitudinal research [ 107 ], experimental studies could offer a welcome addition to the literature. Furthermore, intervention research can use the present findings to increase the level of LS among students and other cases. These interventions can be designed to help university students to secure new supports or utilize existing ones that may enable them by strengthening SE, DS, and life satisfaction. For example, it may be likely to help students to assert in part of agency over their affecting regulation. Such a tactic might explain life domains/roles that are of specific relevance to students and evaluate their life satisfaction in these domains/roles. However, these interventions must be offered very cautiously because particular features of well-being (e.g., life satisfaction) may be more changeable and vulnerable to nonpersonality effects than the present study and other studies assumed [ 108 ]. Meta-analysis cannot replace focused empirical research in addition to it could not adopt the full complexity of interrelationships between constructs [ 106 , 109 ]. These interrelationships require to be addressed in prospective studies. They have to study other factors that account for variance in life satisfaction beyond that explained by the SCCT antecedents. The constructs included in this meta-analysis are limited to constructs for which appropriate data are accessible. Therefore, the meta-analysis has to be considered as a summary of the most commonly studied elements of life satisfaction. Future studies may inspect other theories/models and the effects of those variables not comprised in the present study (i.e., positive and negative expected emotions). The present study proposes visions into the pros and cons of theory-driven meta-analysis and meta-analytic structural equation modeling in the area of life satisfaction [ 110 ]. A vital area for further meta-analytic research is the potential mediating role of SCCT variables in the relationship between life satisfaction and more distant constructs, like SE and DS. The theory-driven meta-analysis offers a method to address unanswered research questions and reach a sense of theoretical transparency of the relationships that career development researchers strive to understand [ 111 ]. Study findings showed that students’ personality traits can predict life satisfaction among university students. Previous studies also showed different results, as some studies found a negative influence of some aspects of personality traits on life satisfaction [ 112 ], other studies discovered personality traits as significant predictors of life satisfaction [ 113 ]. This inconsistency in previous findings reflects that personality traits are different in every culture and country. Future studies need to consider different cultural contexts when applying the SCCT model. It is also possible for prospective studies to test this model by adding cultural related constructs to see whether the view of LS is different in various countries. This will be helpful to redefine LS and also create novel scales of LS for different cultures.

The population sampled in this meta-analysis was university students. Generalization of the findings to other samples (e.g., high school students, employees, etc.) must be performed cautiously. Regardless of these limitations, this study advises that the modified form of SCCT can offer a usable pattern for comprehending and predicting life satisfaction and designing interventions to satisfy students in their university-to-work transition. Last but not least, it would be useful for prospective studies to test SCCT constructs in predicting life satisfaction of university students, which can be moderated by cultural [ 114 ], field-specific, measurement, or sampling considerations.

Supporting information

S1 checklist. prisma 2009 checklist (adapted for kin 4400)..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237838.s001

S1 Fig. PRISMA 2009 flow diagram.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237838.s002

Acknowledgments

We thank Professor Thomas N. Garavan (Business School, Edinburgh Napier University) for assistance with comments that greatly improved the manuscript.

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It’s not my intention to give full information or an extensive discussion on every theory. This website is intended to be a starting point and the main difference with other websites is the visual representation of the theory, which I hope will help get to grips with the theory. There are also links it the bottom to get your further research started.

Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT)

Hackett & betz, 1981; lent, brown, & hackett 1994, introduction.

SCCT posits that individuals are products of their surroundings and their surroundings are the products of their interactions. The different elements within an individual’s context influence each other bi-directionally.

SCCT originally consisted of three overlapping and interacting models aimed at explaining the processes through which people (Lent, et al., 1994, p. 79):

• Developing career interests
• Making, forging, enacting and revising occupational choices
• Achieving career success

“[Their] framework emphasises learning and cognitive phenomena that may complement, and foster, conceptual linkages with, existing career models.” (Lent, et al., 1994, p. 79).  As stated, they drew primarily from Bandura’s social cognitive theory.

• personal performance accomplishments
• vicarious learning – learning derived from independent sources such as through hearing or observation, rather than doing and experimenting.
• social persuasion
• physiological and affective states – e.g.: depression can suppress our belief in our abilities
• Outcome expectations : refers to the perceived outcomes ,effects or consequences of certain behaviours. People tend to favour positive outcome expectations and tend to avoid those that are expected to have a negative outcome, even if their self-efficacy about the action required is high.

Both self-efficacy and outcomes expectations are closely linked. If someone has high confidence in their ability to do something, then they may expect a positive outcome. Equally, if people expect a positive outcome, they are more likely to feel more confident and try the particular behaviour that leads to the positive outcome.

• Goals , or personal goals address the question about how much and how well a person wants to do something (Lent, 2013, p. 119). They help organise, direct and sustain certain behaviours through the amount of progress people believe they are making towards achieving that goal. Goals are affected by a person’s self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations. A perception of strong or weak progress can have an effect on a person’s self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations and vice-versa.

Let’s see how this works within their model in how these building blocks were used in exploring how basic career interests are developed within individuals.

The 4 models of SCCT

SCCT consists of 4 distinct but overlapping models (Lent, 2013, p. 120):

• The development of interests or the interests model – a child’s environment offers an array of activities – children are encouraged to do well in certain selective activities – they practise these and receive feedback – generating interest or the opposite depending on the nature of the feedback and their response in the 3 basic building blocks above.
• The making of choices or the choice model – making a career choices is not a one off event but an ongoing developmental set of processes. As illustrated in the interest model, certain choices may over time become more interesting and viable and others less attractive and open to a successful outcome. Choices are open to future reconsideration and change.
• The influences on, and results of performance – the performance model
• The experience of satisfaction and well-being in education or occupation – the satisfaction model

In each of these 4 models, the 3 basic building blocks above are seen to interact with other aspects of a person (gender, ethnicity etc…) and their environment as well as learning experiences they have.

Model 1: The development of interests – SCCT’s Interest Model:

On the basis of their research and represented model above, Lent et al. posit two predictions (Lent, et al., 1994, pp. 91, 92):

• “Proposition 1: An individual’s occupational or academic interests at any point in time are reflective of his or her concurrent self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations”
• “Proposition 2: An individual’s occupational interests also are influenced by his or her occupationally relevant abilities, but this relation is mediated by one’s self-efficacy beliefs.”

The underlying premise to the theory is that we are interested in doing something that we perceive we’re good at and that we’re more likely to practice and become good at something we’re really interested in. This means that self-efficacy and outcome expectations play a central role in this theory.

• In practice, this means that if an individual engages in an activity they feel they are good at and they expect positive outcomes from, they are more likely to set higher level goals for participating more in this activity.
• These goals in turn increase the likelihood of increased participation in that activity.
• As the individual participates more, their achievements will increase and they will receive both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards.
• These attainments and rewards will them become influencers on the individual’s self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations in a dynamic process.
• Perceived abilities are key influences on an individual’s self-efficacy beliefs, which in turn influences interests.
• Values, such as money and status, are integrated in outcome expectations and we expect these to happen when we engage in activities we are interested in.

Model 2: The making of choices – SCCT’s Choice Model:

Builds on the Interest model and is represented in the green blocks in the illustration below. Over time, the processes preceding the making of choices make certain choices more or less likely to be pursued. Individuals have a tendency to pursue those outcome they perceive as achievable and interesting. For simplicity, there are 3 components to choice making (Lent, 2013, p. 123):

• The expression of a primary choice to enter a field of work or study
• Taking actions to implement one’s goal (e.g.: enrolling on a course)
• Subsequent performance experiences such as feedback in the form of success or failure, which in turn forms a feedback look as a learning experience influencing future choices, self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations.

The choice process is in turn influenced by the individual’s environment. Individuals don’t make value-free, influence-free choices (see blue box on the right below). Environments choose people as well, for instance through local availability, success at a job interview out of a random pool of other people, etc…  This model is close to person-environment fit theories and Holland’s theory. People with similar beliefs, outcome expectations, backgrounds and interests tend to choose similar outcomes.

Model of person, contextual and experiential factors affecting career related choice behaviour. (Lent, et al., 1994, p. 93)

Interpretation of the model: Cultural influences

Whether you’re an advocate of nature, nurture or a combination of both, Lent et al. use the header of ‘cultural influences’ to group these together. These consist of 2 areas:

• Person inputs or influences coming from ‘within’ as it were. Something like ethnicity or gender, which is culturally defined, will influence the social learning experience an individual has. If you’re a woman or a man, your experience is defined by the culture you live in and ‘coloured’ by how your biological sex affects your interaction with the learning experience in both the nature of the learning experiences you may get and how they are absorbed.
• Distal or background contextual influences (blue box bottom left) – is active as an influence on learning experiences and therefore self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations
• Proximal environmental influences (blue box top right) – comes into play during the active phases of choice making

Following interests into career choice – the career choice phase is divided into several component processes (Lent, et al., 1994, p. 94):

• Choice goals : the expression of a primary choice goal from among one’s major career interests
• Choice actions : actions designed to implement the choice (e.g.: enrolling in a particular training programme or academic course)
• Subsequent performance attainments (e.g.: academic failures, admission acceptances) that create a feedback loop, affecting the shape of future career behaviour.

According to SCCT, individual choice is often, but not always linked to interests. Other factors, environmental and personal, prompt compromise. This puts SCCT in closer proximity to Gottfredson’s Circumscription and Compromise theory .

Model 3: SCCT’s Performance Model

Focuses on two primary aspects of performance (Lent, 2013, p. 126):

• The level of success an individual achieves in their educational or occupational activities
• The level of determination and persistence they display in the face of adversity, which is where the performance model overlaps with the choice model

The performance model and choice model overlap as they are both focused on persistence.

• In the choice model it’s seen in terms of choice stability – endurance to stick with a certain choice
• In the performance model it’s perceived in terms of performance adequacy

Educational and professional/vocational performance is the result of the interplay between a person’s ability, their self-efficacy and outcome expectations and performance goals. Self-efficacy and outcome expectations are influenced by past performance, which in turn is influenced by performance assessments of goals achieved in the present. In other words: how we perform now has an influence on our perception of past performance, which in turn influences not only our sense of self-efficacy and the expectations we have of future performance but also how we regard future performance. Self-efficacy is complementing and not substituting objectively assessed performance and ability.

So what people perceive as possibilities for what they can accomplish is influenced by past and present performance, but also what they believe they can do, all of which influences what they are aiming for in the future.

Model 4: Satisfaction model

Focuses on people’s perception of satisfaction or well-being in education and/or occupation (Lent, 2013, p. 128). The elements that are providing satisfaction, according to SCCT, overlap with those of the other models.

Lent (2013) argues that people are likely to be happy relative to the extent of:

• their involvement in activities they value
• their perception of themselves making progress in their goals
• the possession of strong self-efficacy – a strong view of what they can do and in achieving their goals
• their access to the means and environment that help promote their self-efficacy and achievement of their goals

Lent (2013) adds that it is also affected by:

• aspects of an individual’s personality
• work conditions at the place of occupation or study

He goes on to state that there are many indirect paths by which personality and environment can influence or affect work satisfaction. This is an interesting observation and addition for us career practitioners because it draws satisfaction down to a more personal and individualised level and that these are changeable. Lent recognises that these add complexity to the model, but that they are essential.

Social Cognitive Career Theory in practice

When learning about this theory, it struck me that this would an excellent model for research into the details of what drives specific groups of individuals to make the occupational and career decisions they make. Tang (2009) in her research in the gender implications of SCCT is an example of this which made me at the same time realise that this model allows research into, or exploration of gender bias and cultural bias. When it comes to individual support (as opposed to career education), Tang argues in favour of a more individualised approach and awareness (as opposed to letting cultural, social or gender influences to influence the process) where the SCCT model can provide a model for exploring individualised barriers to career and occupational goals Tang (2009). She suggest that after exploring these personal barriers, environmental elements or barriers can be brought in and explore to find out how the client can overcome these.

I feel that this theory can be useful in two different ways:

• It can help practitioners explore client assumptions and perceptions of blockages for achieving certain goals and where they come from or where they fit in.
• Linked to this, it can help with exploring ways of getting around these blocks preventing the client from achieving their goals

This in turn will help the client have the broadest possible perception of their options and awareness of blocks and how and where they affect their thinking.

Lent (2013) recognises that SCCT has been used in a practical way to:

• Conceptualise and evaluate career education programmes – amongst many other things, these programmes can help re-adjust young people’s self efficacy beliefs and preserve discarded occupational or educational choices as future options. This reminds me strongly of the work of Gottfredson.
• expand choice options by exploring social cognitive processes that are at the basis of choice problems. The model can offer a framework for discovering and exploring these with the client.
• SCCT can also help open up routes of blocked off opportunities because of a client’s inaccurate perceptions of their self-efficacy and outcome expectations. A client may not feel they have the skills or resources to achieve a certain goal while those resources are clearly there or can be built up. Revisiting discarded options and exploring these with the help of one of the SCCT models, these may be opened up again.
• When a client’s aptitudes are excellent for a certain path but the client shows little interest, outcome expectations may be at the basis of this which may be resolved by exploring with the client.
• In this respect, Lent also proposes a card sorting exercise where the client sorts different careers in a ‘would not choose’, ‘maybe’ and ‘would choose’ pile after which they are further filtered along questions linked to self-efficacy and outcome expectations (Lent, 2013, p. 138).
• SCCT can help coping and exploring barriers and building support – where support may come from and what form it will take. Individuals are more likely to set and pursue their goals if they encounter minimal barriers and maximum support. Lent proposes the use of a ‘decisional balance sheet’ where negative aspects of a choice are balanced against positive ones, which can then be contextualised for the client (what is really going to happen if…) rather than idealised (this is not possible).
• Support with goal setting and self-regulation, especially for clients with low levels of conscientiousness or by helping clients frame their goals.

Critique of SCCT

Did you find this an easy and straightforward model to get your head around? Or did it take some work before it clicked? Or didn’t it click at all – by which I mean, didn’t it appeal enough?

This is not a straightforward and simple model as it consists of at least 4 different areas within it, in the 4 different models it contains. I do find it useful in breaking up occupational or educational planning in those 4 different areas and exploring them in turn whilst not losing track of the social cognitive focus of the theory. If you found Bandura difficult to get your head around, this takes it a step further. In any case, exploring Bandura first before tackling SCCT is a good idea I think. Once it ‘clicks’ in your mind it’s not too difficult to understand I think.

• How do you feel it links up with other theories, especially Bandura’s work and the narrative approach, but also developmental approaches and environmental theory? What strengths does it offer over and above these and what aspects are part of SCCT that are not part of the other theories I listed?
• How would you personally be able to use SCCT in your day to day work, either as a reflective tool for work with individual clients, your work generally or within interventions?
• To help you get to grips with SCCT, have a look at the illustrations of the models again and relate them to your own career and educational choices. How well does it ‘fit’ your (life) experiences?
• Is occupational planning always goal orientated? If not, what else could its focus be?
• Are our perception of our self-efficacy and our outcome expectation always the driver of our career? Some may say that hobbies and interests can be a driver, but are they in turn influenced by our social environment, outcome expectations and self-efficacy perception?
• What kinds of different goals are there and is the model always applicable? For example, there are small, daily goals to achieve (finishing an essay by tomorrow) and there are possibly life-long goals (becoming the proverbial rocket scientist)
• How well would this model perform for people who have health conditions or mental health conditions, or disabilities?
• What about different cultures? Can you think of cultural groups that wouldn’t fit in with SCCT or for whom this model has less or little to offer?
• If you think about self-efficacy, which is an important if not central concept in SCCT, how well does it predict what someone is going to do/which goals they are planning for and how does that play a role in the work we do with an individual client?

There are also good sources for a critique of SCCT in some of the links below.

Useful links

• http://psychology.iresearchnet.com/counseling-psychology/career-counseling/social-cognitive-career-theory/
• http://www.cegnet.co.uk/uploads/resources/Five_career_theories_Rev.pdf
• http://scctresearch.weebly.com/uploads/9/6/9/6/9696327/apa10_nsf_cross-sec.pdf
• https://www.nae.edu/File.aspx?id=126530
• https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00009/full
• https://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2438&context=dissertations
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4474160/
• https://ncda.org/aws/NCDA/page_template/show_detail/22524?model_name=news_article

Slideshare type resources:

• https://prezi.com/p/mfgxgttz7ae8/social-cognitive-career-theory/
• https://slideplayer.com/slide/6017706/

References and proposed further reading

• Lent, R. W., Brown, S. D. & Hackett, G., 1994. Toward a Unifying Social Cognitive Theory of Career and Academic Intererst, Choice and Performance. Journal of Vocational Behaviour, Volume 45, pp. 79 – 112.
• Lent, R.W (2013), Social Cognitive Career Theory. In: Brown, S.D. and Lent, R.W. (2013). Career development and counseling : putting theory and research to work . 2nd Edition. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley. pp. 115 – 146.
• Mueller, C., Hall, A. and Miro, D., 2020.  Testing An Adapted Model Of Social Cognitive Career Theory: Findings And Implications For A Self-Selected, Diverse Middle-School Sample . [online] J-stem.net. Available at: https://j-stem.net/index.php/jstem/article/view/17 [Accessed 20 May 2020].
• Lent, R.W. & Brown, S.D. & Hackett, Gail. (2002). Social cognitive career theory. Career Choice and Development (4th Ed.. 255-311).
• Tang, M., (2009), Intervention Implications for School Counselors from a SCCT Perspective on Ncda.org. 2020. [online] Available at: https://ncda.org/aws/NCDA/page_template/show_detail/22524?model_name=news_article [Accessed 31 May 2020].

Privacy Overview

OPINION article

The perspectives of social cognitive career theory approach in current times.

• 1 Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
• 2 School of Foreign Studies, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, China

Introduction

Due to the rapid changes as a response to the technological innovations in the current society, the original relationship between organizations and employees has become unstable, and a new model of boundaryless career has been established ( Arthur and Rousseau, 1996 ). The boundaryless career model, characterized by complexity, non-linearity, and unpredictability, emphasizes the influence of the environment on individuals. Among the career theories, Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) first added contextual factors to the original model ( Lent et al., 1994 ). Therefore, SCCT seems to be more applicable to the current boundaryless era.

Considering the role of individual cognitive variables (self-efficacy and outcome expectations), learning experiences, and personal interests on career development, SCCT focuses on not only environmental but also individual factors that influence one's career decision making ( Lent et al., 1994 ). The SCCT has good applicability in school career education guidance and provides a comprehensive framework for explaining and predicting career development ( Lent and Brown, 2019 ). The SCCT framework provides a theoretical foundation for career coaching. Compared to other career theories, SCCT offers a new perspective on guiding adolescents' interest formation, professional (career) choice, and performance, with potential for cross-cultural research ( Lent et al., 2013 ).

Therefore, this study aims to present the advantages and challenges of SCCT and propose future research trends. The SCCT approach has the following advantages: firstly, it provides a systematic explanation for career development; secondly, it responds to the development of the times; finally, it focuses on special groups in terms of career counseling. SCCT approach also faces some challenges: lack of qualitative research methods, lack of qualitative assessment methods, and lack of intervention approach. The contribution of the study adds the number of targeted recommendations and strategies as follows: (1) Explore qualitative and quantitative research methods for SCCT; (2) Explore qualitative assessment methods for SCCT; (3) Develop multiple forms of SCCT approach.

Social cognitive career theory

Derived from Albert Bandura's Self-Efficacy Theory and General Social Cognitive Theory ( Lent, 2013 ), SCCT develops into a comprehensive career theory that argues that an individual's career path results from the interaction between multiple career elements since it was proposed by Lent et al. (1994) . General social cognitive theory assumes that people are the product of a dynamic interaction between external environmental factors, internal subjectivity factors, as well as past and present behavior ( Bandura, 1986 ). Self-efficacy depends on four main factors: personal performance accomplishments, vicarious learning, social persuasion, and physiological and affective states ( Bandura, 1997 ). Drawing on Bandura's three-factor causal model, SCCT constructs a three-factor interaction model of career, in which Self-efficacy (Can I do this?), outcome expectations (what will happen if I do this?) and personal goals (how much do I want to do this?) are the three core concepts ( Buthelezi et al., 2010 ). Rooted in learning experiences influenced by personal successes and failures experiences, vicarious learning, verbal persuasion, and affective states ( Lent et al., 2017 ), self-efficacy and outcome expectations greatly influence one's interests, which in turn influence career choices and achievement performance ( Lent et al., 1989 ).

Lent et al. (1994) indicated that contextual variables influence individuals' career interests and choices by shaping learning experiences in SCCT. The contextual variables of SCCT include the background contextual affordance and contextual influences proximal to choice behavior that affects career choice behavior. Among them, the background contextual affordance helps individuals to form interests and self-perceptions, while contextual influences play a role in the career decisions ( Lent et al., 1994 ). The two types of contextual variables contain elements that overlap with each other, such as family and other social factors, these factors contribute to an individual's academic and career performance differently at different stages. More social support and specific personality traits predict more occupationally engaged behavior ( Hirschi et al., 2011 ). The Big Five personality stands out in previous studies on personal traits. It is a significant predictor of an individual's choice behavior. Schaub and Tokar (2005) verified the relationship between Big Five personality, career learning experiences, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and interest. The study showed that personality affects career interest directly and indirectly through career learning experiences and self-efficacy. When students present themselves as more extroverted, they seem more likely to choose a career, and when they held favorable level of conscientiousness, they experience less discomfort with decision making. Extraversion and neuroticism may influence people's interpretation of how they deal with past decisions ( Penn and Lent, 2019 ).

The theory introduces the mechanism of the interaction of individual, behavioral and environmental factors into the career field. Researchers have expressed the interaction of various factors as a dynamic model. Social cognitive career theory initially included three interrelated models: the career interest development model, the choice-making model, and the career performance and persistence model ( Lent et al., 1994 ), and was later expanded to include two additional models, one focusing on satisfaction and well-being model in educational and vocational settings ( Lent and Brown, 2008 ), and the other the career self-management model, which emphasizes the process of career self-management across the lifespan ( Lent and Brown, 2013 ).

Based on the framework of SCCT, the researcher summarized the techniques and methods of career interventions, which mainly include expanding choice options, coping with barriers, building support, goal setting and self-regulation, facilitating work performance, and promoting work satisfaction ( Lent, 2013 ). The purpose of the SCCT intervention is to develop and modify self-efficacy related to career choices and interests, to overcome barriers related to choice and success, and to define personal goals by expanding interests and promoting choices ( Barnard et al., 2008 ). With the theoretical framework, Miles and Naidoo (2016) examined the impact of the SCCT career program, which proves to positively affect high school students' career decision-making self-efficacy.

Chartrand and Rose (1996) were the first to suggest the application of SCCT to populations at risk for employment and occupational barriers. SCCT helps immigrant high school students to prevent dropouts, promote academic success, and foster college and career readiness through a combination of academic support and increased critical consciousness ( McWhirter et al., 2019 ). A SCCT-based career education curriculum was designed for rural high school students which positively affected their career information about postsecondary planning and career exploration, and their planning for futures ( Gibbons et al., 2019 ). Ali et al. (2019) evaluated the effectiveness of a sociopolitical development component in a SCCT career intervention program among rural middle school students, and found that there was limited support for the effectiveness of spd-injected SCCT interventions. Yuen et al. (2022) tested a SCCT-based career intervention program for middle school students with mild special educational needs and found it impacted the students' career, personal and social development self-efficacy, and acquisition of a sense of meaning in life. Silva et al. (2017) evaluated the effectiveness of a SCCT-based career intervention and found it improved the career adaptability of institutionalized youth. Also, Glessner et al. (2017) found that a workshop on the online Florida CHOICES program and a campus visit increased semirural school student career and college self-efficacy. The study supported the practice of engagement in a virtual- and community-based intervention as a teaching strategy.

Advantages of social cognitive career theory

Provide a systematic explanation for career development.

SCCT values the role of psychological factors (interests, abilities, values), social factors (e.g., socioeconomic status, gender, race), and economic factors (e.g., employment opportunities, training opportunities, etc.) ( Long et al., 2002 ). By doing so, SCCT attempts to create an integrated framework that overcomes the limitations of traditional theory that separates psychological, social, and economic factors. SCCT more systematically elucidates how the interaction between core cognitive, personal, and environmental variables contributes to an individual's career development.

Respond to the development of the times

Lent et al. (1994) constructed the SCCT framework, which argues that interest arises from self-efficacy and outcome expectations. Self-efficacy and outcome expectations change dynamically as learning experiences change, and a developmental perspective is used to view career development. The theory emphasizes that goal selection is dynamic and that environmental factors influence goal setting, in line with the current boundaryless era.

Traditional career theories ignore the social environment factors, emphasize the matching of personality traits with careers, and ignore the influence of the environment on career development. SCCT emphasizes individual and environmental changes and views career choice as a relatively dynamic system as time changes, which proves to be more adaptive to the contemporary society than traditional career theories.

Focus on special groups of career counseling

SCCT proposes that environmental factors impact individual career development and directly influence the formation of learning experiences. It extends to special groups and offers possibilities and strategies for career counseling for special groups. Much related research has focused on special groups, such as individuals with serious mental health disorders ( Fabian, 2000 ), institutionalized youth ( Silva et al., 2017 ), immigrant high school students ( McWhirter et al., 2019 ), rural school students ( Ali et al., 2019 ; Gibbons et al., 2019 ), and secondary school students with mild special educational needs ( Yuen et al., 2022 ).

Challenges to social cognitive career theory

Lack of qualitative research methods for scct.

Previous studies tend to use quantitative methods to validate the SCCT framework ( Lent et al., 2017 ; Penn and Lent, 2019 ), while few studies explore the career selection process adopting qualitative research approaches. At the same time, SCCT focuses on self-efficacy, outcome expectation, and learning experience when explaining career choice and development. Among these factors, which one plays the most important role, and to what degree they can predict career performance is unclear. This impedes the application of SCCT to the educational settings.

Lack of qualitative assessment methods for SCCT

SCCT emphasizes the role of learning experiences, environmental factors, and interests, which consequently leads to the ambiguity of the evaluation criteria, especially the qualitative evaluation methods. Some researchers conducted a quantitative assessment method by Career Decision Self-Efficacy Questionnaire ( Miles and Naidoo, 2016 ; Glessner et al., 2017 ).

Among the few studies that used qualitative assessments, one study conducted interviews with five teachers and social workers ( Yuen et al., 2022 ). There is no uniform criteria for qualitative evaluation. However, qualitative assessment methods may be complicated, especially for special groups.

Lack of intervention approach for SCCT

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was difficult to conduct a follow-up survey to identify the long-term effects of the SCCT Project ( Yuen et al., 2022 ). On the other hand, most of the studies on SCCT have focused on specific groups, and it is difficult to expand the findings to the general population.

However, researchers proposed a Multi-Tiered System of Support for students: the first tier of the framework is the curriculum to promote mental health for all students. The second is group counseling for some students, which meets the developmental needs to prevent problems and cope with the confusion of students' growth. The third is the intervention for individual students to address their special mental health problems ( Fang et al., 2014 ; Sulkowski and Michael, 2014 ). The SCCT interventions mostly take the form of the workshop ( Ali et al., 2019 ; McWhirter et al., 2019 ), and individual counseling may be more appropriate for special groups. In summary, multiple forms of SCCT interventions need to be developed.

Explore qualitative and quantitative research methods for SCCT

Sheu et al. (2010) used meta-analytic path analyses to synthesize data from 1981 to 2008 and found that both self-efficacy and outcome expectations are significant predictors of interests, and that interests partially mediate the effect of self-efficacy and outcome expectations on choice goals. However, inconsistent findings were shown by Garriott et al. (2014) , which examined the relations of high school students' learning experiences, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and interests. The study showed that self-efficacy significantly predicted interests, but did not predict outcome expectations. In addition, outcome expectations did not predict interests ( Garriott et al., 2014 ). Although SCCT provides an important theoretical basis for explaining and predicting academics and careers, research on the relationship between learning experiences, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and interests has not yet yielded consistent findings.

Qualitative and quantitative research methods deserve to be combined in the field of career ( Pan and Sun, 2018 ). As previous studies on SCCT mainly used quantitative methods, future research should combine qualitative and quantitative methods to explore the relationship between the different variables of SCCT.

Explore qualitative assessment methods for SCCT

Lent and Brown (2020) systematically introduced a three-factor (content-process-context, CPC) assessment model to determine what issues exist and how to prioritize them in counseling. The use of assessments early in the counseling can gauge the need in terms of decision-making processes, contextual barriers, and/or choice of content options. Future studies on the evaluation of SCCT can be conducted on the following three factors. (1) Content: Assessment can be based on the variables included in the SCCT, namely interest, outcome expectancy, self-efficacy, learning experience. For example, for learning experiences, assessments are made in terms of achievement events, alternative experiences, emotional state, and social encouragement. (2) Process: To identify difficulties with the decision-making process, such as choice anxiety, Interpersonal conflict, and low decision-making self-efficacy. (3) Context: To assess critical environmental characteristics that can aid or impede selection, such as contextual supports, contextual barriers, and factors related to the selection. In terms of sequencing the assessment, it may be careful to collect decision-making process and contextual information either prior to or along with content data, as a rush to evaluate interests may ignore personal or contextual factors affecting responses to the assessment instrument, the understanding of results, or the willing to engage in exploration or to make a decision ( Lent and Brown, 2020 ).

Develop multiple forms of the SCCT approach

With the development of the Internet, the online career network system can effectively offset the shortcomings of traditional intervention. The computer is accessible anytime and anywhere without physical contact, so the problems in the conventional intervention model can be solved online. With the development of computer networks, career intervention has evolved into an online format. SCCT is the framework for developing mobile phone-based intervention ( Ho et al., 2020 ).

As an important research direction, SCCT intervention can be designed around career guidance and counseling in school. In addition, the primary forms of career intervention are career class, group career counseling, workshop, computer network system, and individual counseling ( Whiston et al., 2017 ). Regarding the student development guidance model, the school career development is designed on three levels. The first level of career intervention is open to all students and is designed with a practical career curriculum according to the psychological developmental characteristics. On the second level, students with specific needs, identified on the first level, are chosen for group counseling. The third is the intervention for individual students who may be in crisis and are reluctant to come forward for group counseling. To sum up, the school career intervention system is based on the three levels of career development.

Future research should develop multiple interventions and evaluate the effects of specific career interventions (e.g., self-service, computer network systems, career counseling, etc.) on different groups so as to develop systems for SCCT interventions.

Based on General Social Cognitive Theory and Self-Efficacy Theory, SCCT is an effective form of career counseling in the boundaryless era. While SCCT has strong implications for career counseling and education, it also has deficiencies in research methods, evaluation methods and intervention methods. Therefore, this study offers some suggestions on how to address these challenges: Firstly, future research should combine qualitative and quantitative methods to explore the relationship between the variables of SCCT. Secondly, future research need to explore qualitative assessment methods for SCCT. Finally, researchers are hoped to develop diversified intervention methods for SCCT so that students with different needs all can obtain career development.

Author contributions

DW and XL contributed to design of the study. DW wrote the manuscript. DW and HD modified the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank and extend our sincere gratitude to the reviewers for their support in this study.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: social cognitive career theory, boundaryless career, career intervention, assessment methods, research methods

Citation: Wang D, Liu X and Deng H (2022) The perspectives of social cognitive career theory approach in current times. Front. Psychol. 13:1023994. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1023994

Received: 20 August 2022; Accepted: 16 November 2022; Published: 30 November 2022.

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Copyright © 2022 Wang, Liu and Deng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Xiping Liu, lxp3771@sina.com

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Social cognitive career theory.

Three intricately linked variables—self-efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations, and goals—serve as the basic building blocks of SCCT. Self-efficacy refers to an individual’s personal beliefs about his or her capabilities to perform particular behaviors or courses of action. Unlike global confidence or self-esteem, self-efficacy beliefs are relatively dynamic (i.e., changeable) and are specific to particular activity domains. People vary in their self-efficacy regarding the behaviors required in different occupational domains. For example, one person might feel very confident in being able to accomplish tasks for successful entry into, and performance in, scientific fields but feel much less confident about his or her abilities in social or enterprising fields, such as sales. SCCT assumes that people are likely to become interested in, choose to pursue, and perform better at activities at which they have strong self-efficacy beliefs, as long as they also have necessary skills and environmental supports to pursue these activities.

• Self-efficacy beliefs are assumed to derive from four primary sources of information: personal performance accomplishments, vicarious experiences (e.g., observing similar others), social persuasion, and physiological and emotional states. Personal accomplishments (successes and failures with specific tasks) are assumed to offer a particularly compelling source of efficacy information, but the nature of the social models and reinforcing messages to which one is exposed, and the types of physiological states one experiences while engaged in particular tasks (e.g., low levels of anxiety), can all affect one’s self-efficacy regarding different performance domains.
• Outcome expectations refer to beliefs about the consequences or outcomes of performing particular behaviors (e.g., what will happen if I do this?). The choices that people make about the activities in which they will engage, and their effort and persistence at these activities, entail consideration of outcome as well as self-efficacy beliefs. For example, people are more likely to choose to engage in an activity to the extent that they see their involvement as leading to valued, positive outcomes (e.g., social and self-approval, tangible rewards, attractive work conditions). According to SCCT and the larger social cognitive theory, persons’ engagement in activities, the effort and persistence they put into them, and their ultimate success are partly determined by both their self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations.
• Personal goals may be defined as one’s intentions to engage in a particular activity (e.g., to pursue a given academic major) or to attain a certain level of performance (e.g., to receive an A in a particular course). In SCCT, these two types of goals are, respectively, referred to as choice goals and performance goals. By setting goals, people help to organize and guide their own behavior and to sustain it in the absence of more immediate positive feedback and despite inevitable setbacks. Social cognitive theory posits that goals are importantly tied to both self-efficacy and outcome expectations: People tend to set goals that are consistent with their views of their personal capabilities and of the outcomes they expect to attain from pursuing a particular course of action. Success or failure in reaching personal goals, in turn, becomes important information that helps to alter or confirm self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations.

SCCT’s Interests Model

Self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and goals play key roles in SCCT’s models of educational and vocational interest development, choice making, and performance attainment. As shown in the center of the figure above, interests in career-relevant activities are seen as the outgrowth of self-efficacy and outcome expectations. Over the course of childhood and adolescence, people are exposed, directly and vicariously, to a variety of occupationally relevant activities in school, at home, and in their communities. They are also deferentially reinforced for continuing their engagement, and for developing their skills, in different activity domains. The types and variety of activities to which children and adolescents are exposed is partly a function of the context and culture in which they grow up. Depending on cultural norms, for example, girls are typically exposed to and reinforced for engaging in different types of activities than are boys.

Through continued activity exposure, practice, and feedback, people refine their skills, develop personal performance standards, form a sense of their efficacy in particular tasks, and acquire certain expectations about the outcomes of activity engagement. People are most likely to develop interest in activities at which they both feel efficacious and from which they expect positive outcomes. As people develop interest in an activity, they are likely to develop goals for sustaining or increasing their involvement in it. Further activity involvement leads to subsequent mastery or failure experiences, which, in turn, help to revise self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and, ultimately, interests within an ongoing feedback loop.

Interest development may be most fluid up until late adolescence, the point at which general interests (e.g., in art, science, social, or mechanical activities) tend to become fairly stable. At the same time, data on the stability of interests suggest that interest change does occur for some people during their post-adolescent years. SCCT posits that such changes, when they do occur, can be explained by changes in self-efficacy beliefs and/or outcome expectations—more precisely, by exposure to potent new learning experiences (e.g., parenting, technological advances, job training or restructuring) that enable people to alter their sense of self-efficacy and outcome expectations in new occupational and avocational directions.

In sum, people are likely to form enduring interest in an activity when they view themselves as competent at performing it and when they expect the activity to produce valued outcomes. Conversely, interests are unlikely to develop in activities for which people doubt their competence and expect negative outcomes. Furthermore, SCCT posits that for interests to blossom in areas for which people have talent, their environments must expose them to the types of direct, vicarious, and persuasive experiences that can give rise to robust efficacy beliefs and positive outcome expectations. Interests are impeded from developing when individuals do not have the opportunity to form strong self-efficacy and positive outcome beliefs, regardless of their level of objective talent. Indeed, findings suggest that perceived capabilities and outcome expectations form key intervening links between objective abilities and interests.

SCCT’s Choice Model

SCCT’s model of the career choice process, which builds on the interests model, is also embedded in the figure above. Arising largely through self-efficacy and outcome expectations, career-related interests foster particular educational and occupational choice goals (e.g., intentions to pursue a particular career path). Especially to the extent that they are clear, specific, strongly held, stated publicly, and supported by significant others, choice goals make it more likely that people will take actions to achieve their goals (e.g., seek to gain entry into a particular academic major, training program, or job). Their subsequent performance attainments (e.g., successes, failures) provide valuable feedback that can strengthen or weaken self-efficacy and outcome expectations and, ultimately, help to revise or confirm choices.

As illustrated in the same figure, SCCT also emphasizes that choice goals are sometimes influenced more directly and potently by self-efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations, or environmental variables than they are by interests. Interests are expected to exert their greatest impact on academic and occupational choice under supportive environmental conditions, which enable people to pursue their interests. However, many adolescents and adults are not able to follow their interests either unfettered by obstacles or with the full support of important others. The choice making of these persons is constrained by such experiences as economic need, family pressures, or educational limitations. In such instances, people may need to compromise their interests and, instead, make their choices on the basis of such pragmatic considerations as the type of work that is available to them, their self-efficacy beliefs (“Can I do this type of work?”), and outcome expectations (“Will the job pay enough to make it worthwhile?”). Cultural values (e.g., the degree to which one’s choices may be guided by elder family members) may also limit the role of personal interests in career choice.

SCCT posits conditions that increase the probability that people will be able to pursue their interests as well as conditions where interests may need to be compromised in making career-related choices. Collectively labeled “environmental influences” in the above figure, these conditions refer to the levels of support (e.g., family financial and emotional support), barriers (e.g., lack of finances, inadequate levels of education), and opportunities available to the individual. Simply put, SCCT hypothesizes that interests will be a more potent predictor of the types of choices people make under supportive rather than under more restrictive environmental conditions. Under the latter conditions, one’s interests may need to be bypassed or compromised in favor of more pragmatic, pressing, or culturally acceptable considerations.

SCCT’s Performance Model

SCCT’s performance model is concerned with predicting and explaining two primary aspects of performance: the level of success that people attain in educational and occupational pursuits and the degree to which they persist in the face of obstacles. SCCT focuses on the influences of ability, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and performance goals on success and persistence. Ability (as reflected by past achievement and aptitudes) is assumed to affect performance via two primary pathways. First, ability influences performance and persistence directly. For example, students with higher aptitude in a particular subject tend to do better and persist longer in that subject than do students with lesser aptitude. (Ability or aptitude may be thought of as a composite of innate potential and acquired knowledge.) Second, ability is hypothesized to influence performance and persistence indirectly though the intervening paths of self-efficacy and outcome expectations.

In other words, performance involves both ability and motivation. SCCT emphasizes the motivational roles of self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and performance goals. Specifically, SCCT suggests that self-efficacy and outcome expectations work in concert with ability, in part by influencing the types of performance goals that people set for themselves. Controlling for level of ability, students and workers with higher self-efficacy and more positive outcome expectations will be more likely to establish higher performance goals for themselves (i.e., aim for more challenging attainments), to organize their skills more effectively, and to persist longer in the face of setbacks. As a result, they may achieve higher levels of success than those with lower self-efficacy and less positive outcome expectations. Thus favorable self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and goals help people to make the best possible use of their ability.

It should be emphasized that self-efficacy is seen as complementing, not substituting for, ability. Indeed, SCCT does not assume that self-efficacy will compensate for inadequate task ability. It does, however, predict that the performance of individuals at the same ability level will be facilitated by stronger versus weaker self-efficacy beliefs. For example, academically able adolescents who underestimate their academic talents, compared to their equally able peers with more optimistic self-efficacy beliefs, are likely to set lower goals for themselves, experience undue performance anxiety, give up more quickly in the face of obstacles, challenge themselves less academically, and consequently experience less academic success.

Social cognitive theory notes that large overestimates of self-efficacy can also be self-defeating. For example, job trainees whose self-efficacy drastically overshoots their current skills are likely to set unrealistically high performance goals and to take on job tasks that are beyond their current grasp, which may occasion failure and discouragement. According to Bandura, self-efficacy beliefs that modestly exceed current capabilities are probably optimum because they are likely to lead people to set challenging (but attainable) performance goals and to engage in activities that stretch their skills and that further strengthen their self-efficacy and positive outcome expectations.

Empirical Support and Practical Applications

A substantial body of research has accumulated suggesting that SCCT and its major elements offer a useful framework for explaining educational and vocational interest development, choice making, and performance. Sufficient data have, in fact, accumulated to yield several meta-analyses relevant to SCCT. Meta-analysis is a research strategy that can be used to integrate findings and draw conclusions about the strength of hypothesized relations among variables. Meta-analyses of SCCT’s interest model have revealed substantial support for its major hypotheses. In particular, self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations have each been found to account for a sizable amount of the variation in vocational and educational interests.

Meta-analyses have also supported SCCT’s choice hypotheses. For example, it has been shown that career-related choices are strongly predicted by interests and, to a lesser extent, self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations. Consistent with SCCT’s assumptions about the importance of environmental and cultural influences, some recent research also suggests that interests may play a smaller role in the choice-making process of adolescents and young adults from particular cultures. Specifically, those from a culture characterized by collective decision making were more inclined to choose a career path that was consistent with the preferences of their family members and with their self-efficacy beliefs rather than one that necessarily fit their personal interests. Other research supports SCCT’s hypotheses that interests are more likely to translate into goals, and goals are more likely to promote choice actions, when people are faced with choice-supportive environmental conditions (e.g., relatively low barriers and high supports for their preferred educational/occupational path).

Meta-analyses relevant to SCCT’s performance hypotheses have found that self-efficacy is a useful predictor of both academic and occupational performance. Research on the sources of information, or learning experiences, from which self-efficacy beliefs are assumed to derive has found that performance accomplishments typically show the strongest relations with self-efficacy in corresponding activity domains (e.g., successful performance in math-related classes is associated with higher math self-efficacy). The other (vicarious, persuasion, emotional) sources have also been found to relate to self-efficacy, although typically to a more modest degree than personal accomplishments.

Finally, SCCT has sparked a number of efforts to design and test interventions aimed at various facets of career development. In particular, SCCT suggests a number of targets at which educational and career programs can be directed. These include efforts to expand interests and nurture career aspirations in children and adolescents, facilitate career goal setting and implementation in adolescents and young adults, and promote successful work adjustment (e.g., satisfaction, performance) in adult workers. Reflecting the central role that SCCT accords to self-efficacy and outcome expectations, the interventions that have been proposed or tested to this point tend to rely heavily on experiences that promote these expectations (e.g., exposure to personal mastery experiences and support, access to accurate information about work conditions and outcomes). Extensions of the theory to a number of subpopulations (e.g., women of color, gay and lesbian workers, persons with disabilities) have appeared, and the theory has been applied to the study of career behavior in a number of countries and cultural contexts.

• Occupational choice
• Self-efficacy
• Social learning theory of career development

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Career Theory and Practice Learning Through Case Studies

• Jane L. Swanson - Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA
• Nadya A. Fouad - University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, USA

Jane L. Swanson and Nadya A. Fouad do a masterful job of bringing theory to life through the lived stories of actual career clients. I very much appreciated the book’s format, the examples, the discussion questions, and the richly developed case examples.”

“The case study method is very effective. Students can see firsthand how the theories are interpreted and applied. Often they get a better understanding of their own lives and career history.”

“Theory discussion is complete and usable for students; the quality of the text is strong.”

This textbook is a simple read that provides a great introduction for career counseling. The authors offer a variety of vignettes throughout the book that gives students/readers an opportunity to apply the theories they are learning to the case studies. The case study on Leslie was throughout the book and was built upon with many chapters to give the reader additional material for helping this client. I would have personally liked to see a variety of case studies throughout the book. I do believe students reading this book will have applicable and relevant tools to apply the information learned to the real world of counseling. Rebecca N.

This text provides very concrete exercises and addresses career counseling theory in a multi-cultural aspect that is more comprehensive and current than other texts.

Jane Laurel Swanson

Jane L. Swanson, PhD, is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where she served as Chair of the Department of Psychology and Interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts.   She received her PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1986.   She is a Fellow of the Society of Counseling Psychology (Division 17) of the American Psychological Association and has served as Chair of the Society for Vocational Psychology and on the boards of the Society of Counseling Psychology and the Association for Assessment and Research in Counseling.   Dr. Swanson has served on several journal editorial boards and as Associate Editor of the Journal of Vocational Behavior .   She has published extensively on topics related to career and vocational psychology, such as career assessment, career barriers, measurement of vocational interests, and career interventions.   Dr. Swanson is also an experienced career counselor and facilitator, including founding and directing a university career counseling agency, developing and delivering career interventions for high school students, and training and supervising career counselors.

Nadya A. Fouad

Nadya A. Fouad, PhD, ABPP, is the Mary and Ted Kellner Endowed Chair of Educational Psychology and a University Distinguished Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She received her Ph.D in Counseling Psychology from the University of Minnesota in 1984. Her primary areas of interest are career development and career choices of women and of racial and ethnic minorities; cross-cultural vocational assessment; interest measurement; cross-cultural counseling; race and ethnicity, and competencies in training.   Dr. Fouad is the editor of the Journal of Vocational Behavior .   She is a past editor of the Counseling Psychologist , and has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Vocational Behavior, Journal of Career Assessment, Journal of Counseling Psychology, and Career Development Quarterly . She currently serves on the National Academy of Engineering’s Workforce Development Workgroup.   Dr. Fouad is past president of The Society of Counseling Psychology (17) of the American Psychological Association, past chair of the Council of Counseling Psychology Training Programs, past chair of the Board of Educational Affairs of the American Psychological Association, and is past Chair of the APA Ethics Committee.    She is the 2017 recipient of the Leona Tyler Award for Lifetime of Achievement in Counseling Psychology, the 2014 Society of Vocational Psychology Distinguished Achievement Award, the 2013 Council of Counseling Psychology Training Programs Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2010 Paul Nelson Award, the 2009 APA Award for Distinguished Contributions to Education and Training, the 2009 Janet E. Helms Award for Mentoring & Scholarship, and the 2003 APA Division 17 John Holland Award for Outstanding Achievement in Career and Personality Research.

Social Cognitive Theory

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• First Online: 22 April 2024
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• Shen Decan 2 &
• Zhang Kan 3  

Social Cognitive Theory is a social psychological theory that aims to reveal how individuals’ internal knowledge structure and belief system explain and give meaning to social objects and their interrelationships. According to Gestalt psychology, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Therefore, an understanding of the whole requires a top-down analysis from the overall structure to the characteristics of every part. In the 1930s and 1940s, Kurt Lewin broke new ground in the study of Gestalt psychology by founding topological psychology that focuses on the study of will and need. He proposed an equation for behavior, B = f ( P, E ), emphasizing that behavior ( B ) is a function of two factors: the person ( P ) and their environment ( E ). That is to say, behavior changes with the change of person and social environment. Lewin’s contemporaries, such as Fritz Heider, Muzafer Sherif, Solomon Asch, and Theodore Newcomb, also made great progress in studying cognitive balance, formation of...

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Aronson E, Wilson TD, Akert RM (2014) Social psychology, 8th edn. Pearson India Education Services Pvt. Ltd, Chennai

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Yue G-A (2013) Social psychology, 2nd edn. China Renmin University Press, Beijing

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School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China

Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, China

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Decan, S., Kan, Z. (2024). Social Cognitive Theory. In: The ECPH Encyclopedia of Psychology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6000-2_826-1

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6000-2_826-1

Received : 23 March 2024

Accepted : 25 March 2024

Published : 22 April 2024

Publisher Name : Springer, Singapore

Print ISBN : 978-981-99-6000-2

Online ISBN : 978-981-99-6000-2

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