Vocational imagery and vocational maturity of high school students

The problem was to elicit vocational imagery as genuinely representative as possible of significant outlooks and psychodynamic processes among adolescents. A semi-projective instrument "What I Think About Myself" was constructed in 4 parts and administered to 211 students in 3 public high schools. To evaluate the maturity of vocational outlooks produced by Ss, a "maturity scale" was developed consisting of 7 dimensions evaluated by 48 specific criteria based on contents of protocols. Subjective material elicited by the instrument is significant and authentic and there is good agreement among judges in assessing maturity of outlooks by use of the scale. Relationships between maturity as assessed by judges and factors of age, sex, social level of family, type of curriculum, citizenship ratings, cumulative grade average, intelligence quotient, and scores on achievement tests were not found to be significant. A relationship at the .01 level was found between vocational maturity and number of extra curricular activities.