This randomized experimental study (N = 1,034) examines both the direct and the indirect effects of the Towards Working Life intervention on 2 components of adolescents' career preparation: preparedness for career choice and attitude toward career planning. The intervention comprised a 1-week workshop program, the proximal goals of which were to enhance 9th graders' career choice preparedness and attitude toward career planning. Participants were assessed at baseline and immediately after the intervention. The results showed that the intervention had directly improved the students' career choice preparedness, which in turn increased positive attitude toward career planning. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.
Career preparation has been viewed as a major developmental task for adolescents, the successful performance of which improves personal development, social adjustment, and future well-being (Erikson, 1968;Super, 1990). Savickas (1999) summarized that career developmental theories view "awareness of the choices to be made and information and planning that bear on these choices" (p. 334) as the main predictors of successful career choices and smooth transitions from school to work. Since the early work of Crites (1978), career theories generally have stressed two distinct factors that affect educational and vocational decisions and the implementation of career choices (Savickas, 1999). The first is a competence factor. Crites formulated the model of career maturity, which includes five career choice competencies: (a) selfknowledge, (b) occupational information, (c) goal selection, (d) planning, and (e) problem solving. According to the social cognitive approach, the way in which adolescents develop and exercise personal efficacy in the domain of career choice during adolescence and the transition to adulthood can play a key role in setting the course of their life path (Bandura