The Career and Work Adaptability Questionnaire (CWAQ): A first contribution to its validation

Over the last decade, occupational changes have the rapidly changing job market has begun to demand that people more actively construct their professional lives and acquire career adaptability. The aim of the present study was to develop a specific, new instrument, “Career and Work Adaptability”, to assess degree of adaptability in adolescents planning their futures. We conducted three studies, the first of which aimed to formulate the instrumentʹs items and to verify its factor structure; the second study confirmed the instrumentʹs multidimensional structure and evaluated its discriminant validity; the third study was conducted to verify the factorial structureʹs across-gender invariance and to evaluate its stability over time. Our results showed that the instrument is an effective and multidimensional instrument for accurately measuring career adaptability. Specifically, it can serve as a useful vocational guidance tool in analyzing adolescentsʹ career adaptability.