Internet-Based Versus Paper-and-Pencil Assessment: Measuring Career Decision-Making Difficulties

The present study compared English and Hebrew paper-and-pencil and Internet versions of the Career Decision-making Difficulties Questionnaire (CDDQ). First, the response pattern of 417 clients who filled out the Hebrew paper-and-pencil version was compared with the response pattern found for a matched sample of 837 individuals who visited a career-related Internet site and filled out the Hebrew Internet version of the CDDQ. The internal consistency reliability of the Internet version was similar to that of the paper-and-pencil version (.87 and .88, respectively). The structures derived from the 10 categories of difficulties were also highly similar in the two groups (Spearman rank-order correlation of .87), and both structures resembled the theoretical one proposed by Gati, Krausz, and Osipow. However, the response pattern of 24% of the Internet users could be characterized as "questionable," indicating that these users' difficulties should be interpreted and the users should be offered feedback with reservations. A similar comparison of the English paper-and-pencil questionnaire (n = 403) and the English Internet CDDQ (n = 182) also revealed a high correspondence between the versions, in both their structure and their pattern of scale reliabilities.