Issues Concerning the Interpretation and Assessment of Career Adaptability: Perspective from Hong Kong, China

Abstract

The concept of career adaptability has been widely applied across cultural and educational settings in the hope of finding working solutions to facilitate school-to-work transition. In Hong Kong, China, there are signs showing that career adaptability scores are increasingly being used as the dominant benchmark to measure the effectiveness of career interventions designed for student populations. However, this concept is developed primarily based on western values. For it to fulfill its theoretical promises, the concept needs to be reinterpreted in the local context. This means that issues concerning the measurement and interpretation of career adaptability need to be clarified due to cultural differences. This paper attempts to address this issue by reviewing published studies on adaptability across other disciplines of psychology. Results showed that most published studies in Hong Kong on career adaptability did not use data and methodological triangulation research methodologies. Overall, this review shows that a reductionist approach has been applied to the study of career adaptability in Hong Kong. The current understanding of career adaptability remains largely at the psychological level only. Cognitive and behavioral changes are seldom studied or reported despite their importance. Implications on how future research could be enhanced are discussed.