Tracing super's theory of vocational development: a 40-year retrospective

In a short time span, from 1951 to 1963, six major vocational choice or vocational development theories were introduced into vocational psychology and vocational guidance (Bordin, Nachman & Segal, 1963; Ginzberg, Ginsburg, Axelrad & Herman, 1951; Holland, 1959; Roe, 1956; Super, 1953, 1957; Tiedeman, 1961; Tiedeman & O'Hara, 1963). Most of these theories flourished briefly because of research activity, but only those of Holland and Super have survived and prospered. While Holland produced landmark books (1966, 1973, 1985) to summarize important research results and to document changes in his person-environment choice theory (1959), Super's career development, segmented theory (1953, 1957, 1969, 1972, 1981, 1984a, 1990) evolved more subtly, without as clear a connection to empirical research, as a demonstration of his exceptional creativity in discovering meaningful relationships between life-span phenomena and vocational variables. Whereas Holland's theory was written in a form that could be tested easily, in large measure Super's theory has had to wait for the development of career maturity and other instruments in order to be evaluated. Super indicated in 1984 that what I have contributed is not an integrated, comprehensive, and testable theory, but rather a 'segmental theory'. Each of these segments does provide testable hypotheses, and in due course I expect the tested and refined segments