Career maturity, exploration, and identity foreclosure of student-athletes. Rivas Quinones, Luis Antonio.Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2002. 3083247.

Identity foreclosure refers to the process through which an individual will commit to a specific role or occupation without fully exploring other possible alternatives more consistent with their internal needs and values. Several authors have recently questioned the widely held belief that foreclosure is an active process in the career exploration of intercollegiate student-athletes. They have also reported equivocal findings regarding the lower levels of career maturity previously attributed to student-athletes. The purpose of this study was to follow up on this line of research and investigate the career development of student-athletes. The theoretical constructs of identity foreclosure, vocational exploration and commitment, and career maturity were used as a guiding framework. It was hypothesized that student-athletes would exhibit significantly higher levels of identity foreclosure and significantly lower levels of both career maturity and vocational exploration when compared to a sample of student-non-athletes.

One hundred and seventy four participants received the Commitment to Career Choices Scale (CCCS; Blustein, Ellis, & Devenis, 1989), the Career Development Inventory (CDI; Super, Thompson, Lindeman, Jordaan, & Myers, 1981) and the Strong Interest Inventory (SII; Harmon, Hansen, Borgen, & Hammer, 1994). The 60 student-athlete participants also received a researcher-generated Sport Participation Questionnaire to obtain information for other exploratory analyses performed as part of the study. Methodological procedures used to test the proposed hypotheses included the “matching process” reported by Hansen and Sackett (1993) and the congruence index reported by Brown and Gore (1994). Results revealed that student-athletes do not prematurely foreclose on career choices and are not less vocationally mature when compared to student-non-athletes. However, student-athletes were found to be less open to exploring other alternatives once an initial career choice has been made. No significant differences were found in the tendency to foreclose or the career maturity of student-athletes by expectations about playing at the professional level or by type of scholarship received (e.g., full scholarship, partial scholarship, and no scholarship). No differences in tendency to foreclose were found among student-athletes by gender, but female student athletes were found to have higher levels of career maturity when compared to male student-athletes. The study's results and limitations are discussed, and the conclusion also includes an argument for increased attention to the concept of career adaptability in future studies exploring the career development process among student-athletes.