Received 07/09/15

Revised 09/21/15
Accepted 09/23/15

•
DOI: 10.1002/joec.12070

the role of character strengths and

importance of family on mexican
american college students’
career decision self-efficacy
Javier Cavazos Vela, Gregory Scott Sparrow,
James F. Whittenberg, and Basilio Rodriguez

This study examined how character strengths and the importance of family influenced
Mexican American college students’ (N = 129) career decision self-efficacy. Findings
from a multiple regression analysis indicated that psychological grit and curiosity
were significant predictors of career decision self-efficacy. The authors discuss the
importance of these findings and provide recommendations for future research.

Keywords: character strengths, family, career decision self-efficacy, psychological

grit, curiosity

The Hispanic population is one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the United
States, with Mexican Americans making up the largest subgroup of this population
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). Compared with 30.3% of Whites, 10.6% of Mexican
Americans received a college degree (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). Although career
services have improved for the growing Hispanic population, Mexican American
students pursuing postsecondary education and career selection face individual,
interpersonal, and institutional challenges (Vela, Lu, Veliz, Johnson, & Castro,
2014). Some of these challenges include low self-esteem, lack of motivation, minimal
support from counselors or teachers, socioeconomic issues, and insufficient college
information. Despite the importance of educational research, there is a dearth of
literature regarding how character strengths and the importance of family influence
Mexican American college students’ career development. One of the most important
constructs in career development is career decision self-efficacy (CDSE; Taylor &
Betz, 1983). Given that CDSE is positively related to educational outcomes, career
satisfaction, and life satisfaction, investigating predictors of CDSE is a worthwhile
research endeavor.
In the current study, we use a theoretical framework that consists of character
strengths and importance of family to determine which character strengths are associated

Javier Cavazos Vela, Gregory Scott Sparrow, James F. Whittenberg, and Basilio Rodriguez, Depart-
ment of Counseling and Guidance, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Correspondence concerning
this article should be addressed to Javier Cavazos Vela, Department of Counseling and Guidance,
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, One West University Drive, Main 2.200D, Brownsville, TX
78520 (e-mail: javier.cavazos@utrgv.edu).

© 2018 by the American Counseling Association. All rights reserved.

16 journal of employment counseling • March 2018 • Volume 55
with Mexican American students’ CDSE. First, we provide a literature review with
theoretically and empirically relevant studies on character strengths and importance
of family. Next, we present quantitative findings from 129 Mexican American college
students from a Hispanic-serving institution (HSI). Finally, we discuss the importance
of these findings and the implications for practice and research.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

A useful conceptual approach to understand human development is positive psychol-

ogy (Seligman, 2002). Rather than examining deficits, positive psychology focuses
on strengths, psychological well-being, and life satisfaction (Vela, Castro, Cavazos,
Cavazos, & Gonzalez, 2014). Researchers have used positive psychology to understand
academic achievement, positive psychological functioning, and career development
outcomes. By using a positive psychology paradigm, researchers understand how
character strengths contribute to students’ or adults’ positive psychological func-
tioning and resilience (Seligman, 2002; Snyder & Lopez, 2007). Character strengths
refer to thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that can help youth reach their potential
and personal well-being (Park, 2004; Toner, Haslam, Robinson, & Williams, 2012).
Although positive psychology has identified 24 character strengths, we focus on
psychological grit, curiosity, optimism, and gratitude in the current study. These
four character strengths have been associated with important academic and mental
health outcomes. Therefore, we suggest that these character strengths might also
influence CDSE. The Character Lab (2015) endorsed curiosity, gratitude, optimism,
and grit as important character strengths to understand adolescents’ academic and
other important outcomes.
One of the most important character strengths is psychological grit because of
its relationship with academic outcomes (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly,
2007). Psychological grit (henceforth grit in this article) is defined as passion for
long-term goals and applied efforts toward goals (Duckworth & Eskreis-Winkler,
2015; Duckworth et al., 2007). Researchers found that grit is positively related to
academic performance (Duckworth et al., 2007), performance in the National Spelling
Bee (Duckworth et al., 2007), well-being (Salles, Cohen, & Mueller, 2014), exercise
behaviors (Reed, 2012), and hope (Vela, Lu, Lenz, & Hinojosa, 2015). Curiosity is
another important character strength and consists of stretching (i.e., the tendency
to explore new experiences) and embracing (i.e., readiness to accept new situations)
perspectives (Jovanovic & Gavrilov-Jerkovic, 2014). Researchers identified curiosity
as a characteristic of personal growth and psychological strength (Kashdan, Rose, &
Fincham, 2004; Peterson & Seligman, 2004) that is related to life satisfaction, hope
(Jovanovic & Brdaric, 2012; Kashdan, McKnight, Fincham, & Rose, 2011), academic
success, and positive perceptions of learning environments (Kashdan & Yuen, 2007).
Two other important character strengths that might influence career development
are optimism and gratitude. Vacek, Coyle, and Vera (2010) defined optimism as
the expectation that positive things will happen in life. Optimism has been linked
to psychological health, and schools play an important role in enhancing students’
optimism (Mannix, Feldman, & Moody, 2009; Puskar et al., 2010). Puskar et al.

journal of employment counseling • March 2018 • Volume 55 17

(2010) found that girls had lower levels of self-esteem and optimism when compared
with boys. In addition, Kleiman, Adams, Kashdan, and Riskind (2013) defined
gratitude as mindful appreciation that arises from kindness to others. Gratitude
has been positively related to grit and protective factors and negatively related to
suicidal ideation and attempts (Li, Zhang, Li, & Ye, 2012; Ma, Kibler, & Sly, 2013).
Froh et al. (2014) posited that experiencing and expressing gratitude is a simple way
to counter negative appraisals, increase social adjustment, strengthen supportive
relationships, and increase prosocial behavior.
In summary, grit, curiosity, gratitude, and optimism have been theoretically and
empirically linked (Character Lab, 2015) to adolescents’ and college students’ aca-
demic and mental health outcomes. In addition to character strengths, the importance
of family should be included as part of the conceptual framework to understand
Mexican American students’ career development outcomes.
The importance of family has consistently been found to affect Mexican American
students’ academic performance, resilience, career development, and mental health
(Cavazos et al., 2010; Vela, Lenz, Sparrow, Gonzalez, & Hinojosa, 2015). Marin and
Marin (1991) defined familismo as loyalty and solidarity to the family unit, with im-
portant parts involving family identity, mutual family activities, and family cohesion
(Jose, Ryan, & Pryor, 2012). Researchers illustrated that importance of family is
positively related to the academic resilience and mental health of Mexican American
adolescents and adults alike (Cavazos et al., 2010; Vela, Lenz, et al., 2015). For
example, Vela, Lenz, et al. (2015) examined positive psychology and family factors
as predictors of Mexican American adolescents’ vocational outcome expectations.
Presence of meaning in life and importance of family were predictors of vocational
outcome expectations. In another investigation, Vela, Smith, Hinojosa, Dell Aquila,
and Ortega (in press) examined positive psychology, career, and family predictors of
Mexican American college students’ positive psychological functioning. They found
that students’ perceptions of importance of family predicted subjective happiness.
In sum, because researchers found that the importance of family influenced college
students’ character strengths (e.g., psychological grit; Vela, Lu, et al., 2015), we
include importance of family as part of a conceptual framework to understand CDSE.

CDSE

CDSE refers to how confident individuals are in their ability to choose and com-
mit to a career (Taylor & Betz, 1983). CDSE is negatively related to loss of wages,
underemployment, indecisiveness, and attitudes toward early careers and jobs
(Feldman, 2003). Researchers have highlighted how CDSE is positively related to
educational outcomes (Flores, Ojeda, Huang, Gee, & Lee, 2006) and life satisfaction
(Pina-Watson, Jimenez, & Ojeda, 2014). Given that CDSE is positively related to
educational outcomes and mental health, researchers have begun to identify factors
that influence CDSE. Wright, Perrone-McGovern, Boo, and White (2014) examined
attachment supports and career barriers on college students’ CDSE. Higher percep-
tions of support were related to higher levels of CDSE, whereas higher perceptions

18 journal of employment counseling • March 2018 • Volume 55

of barriers were negatively related to CDSE. Burns, Jasinski, Dunn, and Fletcher
(2013) investigated student-athletes’ perceptions of academic support services and
CDSE and found that perceptions of academic services were positively related to
CDSE. Although researchers have examined the relationship between perceptions
of support and barriers on CDSE, less attention has been given to the role of char-
acter strengths and the importance of family, particularly among Mexican American
college students. Research is necessary to determine which character strengths
influence CDSE.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

Understanding how character strengths and the importance of family influence

Mexican American students’ CDSE is an overriding issue in postsecondary educa-
tion (Pina-Watson et al., 2014). Although some studies have investigated Mexican
American college students’ CDSE, no study has examined how character strengths
and importance of family affect CDSE. There is a dearth of information investigat-
ing how character strengths interact with importance of family within the Mexican
American community. The lack of literature in this area underscores the need to
examine how specific character strengths might affect CDSE. Therefore, we explored
the following research question: To what extent do psychological grit, curiosity,
gratitude, optimism, and importance of family influence Mexican American college
students’ CDSE?

METHOD

Participants

The first author identified large undergraduate courses from an HSI in the southern
region of the United States from which to recruit Mexican American participants. We
used purposive sampling with undergraduate classes to ensure Mexican American
students were included in the sample. The HSI had an enrollment of around 7,000
undergraduate and graduate students (approximately 93% of students at this institution
are Latina/o). A total of 129 students who were enrolled at the HSI provided data.
The sample included 52 men (40.9%) and 75 women (59.1%). Of the participants,
72 (56.7%) self-identified as Latina/o or Hispanic, 40 (31.5%) described themselves
as Mexican American, and 15 (11.8%) indicated a Mexican ethnic identity. Two
participants did not report their gender or other demographic information.

Measures

Psychological grit. The Short Grit Scale (Duckworth & Quinn, 2009) measures
students’ perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Participants respond
to statements on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (not at all like me)
to 5 (very much like me). An example of one of the statements is “Setbacks

journal of employment counseling • March 2018 • Volume 55 19

don’t discourage me.” The mean score for this study was 3.41 (SD = 0.66).
Reliability coefficients range from .78 to .82 (Duckworth, Kirby, Tsukayama,
Berstein, & Ericsson, 2011; Reed, 2012). For the current study, Cronbach’s
alpha was .77.
Curiosity. The Curiosity and Exploration Inventory (Kashdan et al., 2009) measures
participants’ levels of curiosity. Participants respond to items on a 5-point Likert-
type scale ranging from 1 (very slightly or not at all) to 5 (extremely). Sample items
include “I actively seek as much information as I can in new situations” and “I am
the type of person who really enjoys the uncertainty of everyday life.” The mean
score for this study was 3.64 (SD = 0.77). Reliability coefficients range from .76
to .77 (Jovanovic & Brdaric, 2012; Jovanovic & Gavrilov-Jerkovic, 2014). For the
current study, Cronbach’s alpha was .88.
Optimism. The Life Orientation Test (Scheier & Carver, 1985) measures partici-
pants’ optimism. Participants respond to items on a 5-point Likert scale ranging
from 0 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). Sample items include “In uncertain
times, I usually expect the best” and “If something can go wrong for me, it will.”
The mean score for this study was 14.45 (SD = 3.45). Reliability coefficients range
from .70 to .78 (Puskar et al., 2010; Vacek et al., 2010). For the current study,
Cronbach’s alpha was .83.
Gratitude. The Gratitude Questionnaire (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002)
measures participants’ tendency to feel gratitude. Participants respond to items on a
7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Sample
items include “I have so much in life to be thankful for” and “I am grateful to a wide
variety of people.” The mean score for this study was 6.09 (SD = 1.05). Reliability
coefficients range from .83 to .88 (Kleiman et al., 2013; Li et al., 2012). One of the
items (Item 6) was problematic and was removed from the average score computation,
yielding a reliability coefficient for data in the good range (.89).
Importance of family. The Pan-Hispanic Familism Scale (Villareal, Blozis, & Wi-
daman, 2005) measures one’s perceptions of the importance of family. Participants
respond to statements evaluated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly
disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Sample response items include “I am proud of my
family” and “I cherish the time I spend with my family.” The mean score for this
study was 4.28 (SD = 0.97). Reliability coefficients range from .83 to .87 (Pina-
Watson, Ojeda, Castellon, & Dornhecker, 2013; Vela, Lenz, et al., 2015). For the
current study, Cronbach’s alpha was .93
CDSE. The CDSE Scale–Short Form (Betz & Taylor, 2001) measures students’
CDSE. The scale contains five subscales: Self-Appraisal, Occupational Infor-
mation, Goal Selection, Planning, and Problem Solving. Participants respond to
items on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (no confidence at all) to 5
(complete confidence). Sample items include “Make a career decision and then
not worry whether it was right or wrong” and “Prepare a good résumé.” The
mean score for this study was 3.91 (SD = 0.72). Reliability coefficients range
from .91 to .94 (Burns et al., 2013; Wright et al., 2014). For the current study,
Cronbach’s alpha was .95.

20 journal of employment counseling • March 2018 • Volume 55

Procedure

We implemented several steps to gather data for the current study. First, we obtained
permission from the institutional review board of the HSI. Second, we informed
participants that participation was voluntary and would not affect their grade in the
class or their enrollment at the university. We obtained informed consent from all
participants in the study.

RESULTS

Preliminary Analysis

Descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlation coefficients are included in Table 1. We

used an alpha level of .05 for this study. To evaluate multicollinearity, we inspected
bivariate correlations and variance inflation factors (see Table 1). Low intercorrelations
among predictor variables and variance inflation factors were within the acceptable
range (Vela, Lenz, et al., 2015), providing evidence for a single regression model.

Primary Analyses

We conducted a multiple regression analysis on CDSE based on optimism, curiosity,

grit, importance of family, and gratitude. We used multiple regression to predict the
criterion variable of CDSE. Multiple regression is the appropriate statistical analysis
when researchers predict a continuous variable based on other variables (Dimitrov,
2013). After analyzing scatterplots, we found no evidence of curvilinear relation-
ships between the criterion variable and predictor variables or heteroscedascity.
There was a statistically significant relationship between the predictor variables
and CDSE, F(5, 129) = 19.45, p < .001, thus providing evidence that the variance
in CDSE accounted for by the predictor variables does not equal zero for the popu-
lation (Dimitrov, 2013). A large effect size of R2 = .44 was noted, indicating that
44% of the students’ differences in CDSE were accounted for by their differences
in predictor variables in the current study.

TABLE 1
Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations
for the Predictor Variables
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 VIF
1. Optimism 14.45 3.45 — .39 .37 .41 .31 1.38
2. Curiosity 3.64 0.77 — .40 .36 .24 1.34
3. Grit 3.42 0.66 — .37 .22 1.33
4. Importance of family 4.28 0.97 — .40 1.45
5. Gratitude 6.09 1.05 — 1.23

Note. VIF = variance inflation factor.

journal of employment counseling • March 2018 • Volume 55 21

 After establishing the overall statistical significance of R2 and the multiple regres-
sion equation, we examined the statistical significance of the regression coefficients
for significant predictors (Dimitrov, 2013). Both grit and curiosity had unique con-
tributions to the explanation of variance in CDSE. Grit was a statistically significant
predictor of CDSE (see Table 2), accounting for approximately 13% of the variance.
Curiosity was also a statistically significant predictor of CDSE, accounting for 14%
of CDSE. Optimism, gratitude, and importance of family were not statistically sig-
nificant predictors of CDSE.

DISCUSSION

This study contributes to our understanding of Mexican American college students’ career
development by exploring the relationships among character strengths and importance of
family in a multidimensional manner. The study augments previous studies on Mexican
American college students’ career development by examining different variables. We
suggest that our findings have potential to shape interventions and programs to improve
Mexican American college students’ career development. Although not all character
strengths in our study predicted CDSE, future research could use other factors as part
of a framework to examine Mexican American students’ career development outcomes.
There are several important findings in the current study. The two character
strengths predictive of CDSE—grit and curiosity—can be viewed as dynamic
qualities that manifest in a psychological state of arousal or tension. This study
suggests that as grit and curiosity increase, the level of CDSE increases. This is
one of the first studies to highlight how grit and curiosity are positively related
to Mexican American college students’ CDSE. From this perspective, it makes
sense that these two characteristics would prompt an individual to take initia-
tive toward resolving a state of tension related to unmet personal and career
goals, thus subsequently experiencing higher levels of confidence relating to
career decisions. In contrast, optimism, gratitude, and importance of family
can be viewed as static qualities occurring in a relative state of equilibrium or
contentment. If so, high levels of optimism, gratitude, and importance of family
could work bidirectionally, leading some students to have more confidence to
take initiative in pursuing new directions and other students to accept the status
quo from the standpoint of relative contentment.
TABLE 2
Multiple Regression Results for Career-Decision Self-Efficacy
Variable B SE B b t p sr2
Optimism .10 .02 .04 0.53 .60 .00
Curiosity .33 .07 .35 4.55 .000* .14
Grit .37 .09 .33 4.31 .000* .13
Importance of family .07 .06 .10 1.17 .24 .01
Gratitude .04 .05 .05 0.72 .48 .00

*p < .05.

22 journal of employment counseling • March 2018 • Volume 55

Implications for Practice

Professional counselors in high school and college settings play an important role
in students’ career development. On the basis of our findings, counselors should
consider helping students to develop grit and curiosity. Grit has been positively
associated with lifetime educational attainment, academic achievement, persistence
(Duckworth et al., 2007), and CDSE. Therefore, if college counselors adopt strategies
and interventions to develop Mexican American students’ grit, they can help these
students improve their CDSE. Possible strategies include using assessments that
measure students’ grit and then following up with a plan of action to increase grit;
helping students find a career they will be passionate about; and determining how
students will achieve, persist, and strengthen their grit when disappointment arises.
In addition, curiosity has been linked with personal growth, psychological strength
(Kashdan et al., 2004; Peterson & Seligman, 2004), and now CDSE. Curiosity
enables individuals to thrive and develop a sense of subjective and psychological
well-being (Jovanovic & Gavrilov-Jerkovic, 2014). As a result, counselors might
consider avenues for students to increase their curiosity (Jovanovic & Gavrilov-
Jerkovic, 2014) and awareness of job opportunities, as well as strategies to help
students reach full potential. This means that if counselors discuss job opportunities
and career aspirations with students, the students might be more likely to become
curious and explore new opportunities. Finally, because the findings of this study
link curiosity to CDSE, counselors might consider developing innovative ways to
increase students’ curiosity about and awareness of job opportunities. Given the
increasing availability of YouTube videos and podcasts, counselors can accumulate
a catalog of online audiovisual enticements for students who might otherwise show
minimal interest in a particular career track.

Implications for Research

We recommended some directions for future research. First, more outcome-based

research is needed to determine which strategies or interventions improve students’
grit and curiosity. Several possible interventions include narrative therapy (White
& Epston, 1990) and positive psychology (Seligman, 2002). Second, future research
can benefit from an ecological framework to explore how individual, interpersonal,
and institutional factors affect Mexican American students’ CDSE. For Mexican
American high school students, some institutional factors include perceptions of
school climate and a college-going culture (Vela, Lu, et al., 2015). In addition, it is
important to conduct longitudinal studies to understand temporal changes in factors
that affect Mexican American students’ career development.

Limitations

This study has several limitations. First, we relied on cross-sectional data, which
limit cause-and-effect inferences (Vela, Lu, et al., 2014). Second, we relied on

journal of employment counseling • March 2018 • Volume 55 23

students’ self-reported perceptions of character skills and importance of family. We
acknowledge that some students may lack insight into their feelings and percep-
tions or may have provided socially desirable responses (Alvarado & Ricard, 2013;
Vela, Lu, et al., 2015; Zalaquett, 2006). Third, the homogeneity of the university
and its environment might affect generalizability (Watson, 2009). The students in
our sample attended an HSI with over 93% Hispanic students, thereby limiting
applicability of our findings to Mexican American students who attend similar in-
stitutions. Furthermore, we surveyed only successful Mexican American students,
as defined by enrollment in postsecondary education. It would be interesting to
conduct a similar study on Mexican American high school students’ or community
college students’ career development.

CONCLUSION

The findings of this study point to the importance of exploring factors associated
with Mexican American college students’ CDSE. Counselors can assist Mexican
American college students become aware of the importance of grit and curiosity and
use interventions to increase Mexican American adolescents’ career development.
Researchers can endeavor to assess other character strengths and interpersonal factors
to support the emerging framework for predicting Mexican American adolescents’
career development outcomes.

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26 journal of employment counseling • March 2018 • Volume 55