abioladipeolu

Title of QTUG presentation:

Dysfunctional Career Thoughts and Students with Learning Disabilities: Practice Implications

List of Author and co-authors for QTUG presentation:

Abiola Dipeolu & Niki Baerman

Abstract Parental over- involvement could lead to external locus of control, which could affect students’ career decision-making process. Geva, (1995) indicates that positive locus of control depends on a proper balanced of both positive and negative reinforcements that children receive from parents. Students with LD believe that external factors control their academic and career outcomes rather than internal factors (Heiman, 2006). Given this, we hypothesize that students with LD will report higher score on the External Conflict (EC) scale of the Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI), when compared with non-LD peers. A total of One hundred and thirty-nine high school students with LD in a Midwestern school district were administered the EC scale of the CTI. T-tests were run to compare the means of the LD sample with the means of the population upon which the instrument was normed. The results of the t-tests, t (138 = -8.12, p < 0.1) revealed that LD students’ scores were statistically significantly higher, (M = 5.8, SD = 3.2) when compared with scores of students in the norming population (M =3.8, SD = 2.2). This supports the need for the creation of a new norm table to better interpret the scores of students with LD.