A Content Analysis of Career Development Theory, Research, and Practice—2013

This annual review of the career counseling and development literature presents a content analysis of refereed journal articles published in 2013. Four research questions guided the analysis: (a) What content topics were included in career development articles published in refereed journals in 2013? (b) To what extent are theory, research, and practice integrated in career development articles published in refereed journals in 2013? (c) What variation exists in the characteristics of career development articles published in refereed journals in 2013? and (d) What variation exists in the content included in theory, research, and practice articles? A total of 360 unique topics were identified in 357 articles from 24 journals. Results indicated that topic content in journals evolved slowly with limited integration of theory, research, and practice. Implications are suggested for (a) future topic content; (b) better integration of theory, research, and practice; (c) education and training; (d) journal editorial policy; and (e) future content analyses of journal articles.Keywords: content analysis, career development literature, theory, research, practiceThe Career Development Quarterly (CDQ) has published an annual review of the career counseling and development literature each year since 1989. The number of articles and journals represented in the reviews has grown over time. Each one of those 25 reviews provided a brief summary of the content of articles by topic, as well as a commentary on the nature of the literature published that year (Arbona, 2000; Bikos, Dykhouse, Boutin, Gowen, & Rodney, 2013; Chope, 2008; Cook, 1991; Creager, 2011; Dagley & Salter, 2004; Erford & Crockett, 2012; Flores et ah, 2003; Guindon & Richmond, 2005; Harrington & Harrigan, 2006; Hartung, 2010; Jepsen, 1992; Luzzo & MacGregor, 2001; Niles, 1997; Patton & McIlveen, 2009; Salomone, 1993; Savickas, 1989; Spokane & Hawks, 1990; Stoltz-Loike, 1996; Subich, 1994; Swanson & Parcover, 1998; Tien, 2007; Walsh & Srsic, 1995; Whiston & Brecheisen, 2002; Young & Chen, 1999). In reviewing past CDQ annual reviews, we identified some noteworthy trends. The first trend is that the previous CDQ annual reviews tended to include articles from common journals, including CDQ, Journal of Vocational Behavior (JVB), Journal of Career Assessment (JCA), and Journal of Employment Counseling (JEC). The second trend involved the method for summarizing the literature. Most authors used headings to identify clusters of content in the literature. Finally, some reviews explicitly posed a focus question reflecting the practical purpose of the annual review, such as "How can the research published last year be useful to counselors?" (Erford & Crockett, 2012, p. 291); "What can the reader learn about career counseling and development from these articles?" (Savickas, 1989, p. 127); and "What can the practitioner and researcher learn from the literature to aid their work?" (Jepsen, 1992, p. 99). Our 2013 review builds on previous reviews while also using a content analysis approach to examine the literature. We also include a special emphasis on analyzing the literature in terms of integrating theory, research, and practice.Content Analyses of Journal ArticlesContent analyses of journal articles provide an opportunity for a discipline to periodically evaluate the congruence of the professional literature with the discipline's purpose, interests, and values (Buboltz, Deemer, & Hoffman, 2010; Lee, Rosen, & Bums, 2013). Journal article content analyses also identify trends and changes, which likely affect counseling practice (Loveland, Buboltz, Schwartz, & Gibson, 2006; Williams & Buboltz, 1999). These are the aims of the current review.Content analyses of journal articles take four basic forms. The first involves analyzing the content of multiple journals in career development in a given year, such as those published in CDQ, beginning with Savickas's 1988 review (Savickas, 1989) and continuing through Bikos et al. …