Career Development of College Students With Disabilities: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Despite the significant increase in college students with disabilities (SWD) enrolled in higher education over the past few decades, they face unique challenges in pursuing their career goals and have a much lower employment rate than those without disabilities. To date, no review study has been systematically conducted to examine SWD’ career needs and factors that influence their career outcomes. Therefore, the purpose of this scoping review is to explore salient career development issues among SWD through the lens of Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT). Following Joanna Briggs Institute’s scoping review methodology, we included 48 studies in this review. Applying SCCT as the theoretical framework, we generated five themes from the scoping review: (a) targeted career outcomes, (b) self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations, (c) person inputs, (d) learning experiences, and (e) contextual influences. Implications for practice and research are discussed.