The Structural Validity of Daidalos: A measure of career maturity

Abstract

A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to examine the structural validity of Daidalos, a 20‐item inventory designed to assess the factors that might inhibit or promote successful career decision making, or career maturity. The sample consisted of 776 high school students; 367 were male and 409 were female. Participants ranged in age from 16 to 54 years (M = 18). Goodness‐of‐fit statistics provided strong support for a two‐factor hierarchical model and slightly less for a five‐factor non‐hierarchical model. The two higher‐order factors were identified as a Pre‐process and a Process latent construct. Separate analysis for men and women showed that the model was far more appropriate for women than for men. Item loadings ranged from .46 to .81, first‐order factor intercorrelations ranged from −.15 to .68, and the correlation between the two higher‐order factors was −.42.

Keywords:

• Career maturity
• Career decision making
• Structural analysis

Acknowledgements

Helpful comments have been provided by Monica Martinussen and two anonymous reviewers.