Promising Practices for School Organization of Mental Health Supports
Category: Student Well-Being
Instrument Overview
The Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale (CDSE) is a self-report survey that measures how confident students feel about making career decisions. It was developed by Karen Taylor and Nancy Betz to apply Albert Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy to career decision making. The scale focuses on a student’s belief in their ability to complete key tasks needed to choose a career. These tasks are grouped into five areas: self-appraisal, occupational information, goal selection, planning, and problem solving.
The CDSE is commonly used with high school and postsecondary students to understand readiness for college and career pathways. It can support advising, program evaluation, and improvement efforts in Career and Technical Education (CTE) and related programs. The original version includes 50 items, but a widely used 25-item short form offers similar reliability with less time burden. Responses use a simple confidence scale. Results can help identify students who may need more support exploring options, setting goals, or making plans. They can also help leaders assess whether students across groups have equal access to the skills and confidence needed to make informed career decisions.
While early versions used a 10-point confidence scale, many applications now use a simpler 5-point scale, ranging from “no confidence at all” to “complete confidence.”
Sample items:
How much confidence do you have that you could:
choose a career that will fit your preferred lifestyle (Goal Selection)
find information in the library about occupations that you are interested in (Information Gathering)
change occupations if you are not satisfied with the one you enter (Problem Solving)
make a plan of your goals for the next five years (Planning)
accurately assess your abilities (Self Appraisal)
Organization
Content
Grades
9th Grade,
10th Grade,
11th Grade,
12th Grade,
Post secondary
Languages
English
Respondent
Student
Administration Information
Length
25 items
Access and Use
Developer
Karen Taylor and Nancy Betz, 1983
Psychometrics (additional guidance)
Psychometric References
Betz, N. E., & Luzzo, D. A. (1996). Career Assessment and the Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Scale. Journal of Career Assessment, 4(4), 413-428.
Betz, N. E., Klein, K. L., & Taylor, K. M. (1996). Evaluation of a short form of the Career Decision - Making Self-Efficacy Scale. Journal of Career Assessment, 4, 47–57.
Luzzo, D. A. (1996). A psychometric evaluation of the career decision-making self-efficacy scale. Journal of Counseling and Development : JCD, 74(3), 276. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.1996.tb01865.x
Creed, P. A., Patton, W., & Watson, M. B. (2002). Cross-cultural equivalence of the career decision-making self-efficacy scale-short form: An Australian and South African comparison. Journal of career assessment, 10(3), 327-342.
Nilsson, J. E., Schmidt, C. K., & Meek, W. D. (2002). Reliability Generalization: An Examination of the Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Scale. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 62(4), 647-658.
