Career Development Quarterly: Unlocking Your Potential for Professional Growth

Career Development Quarterly (CDQ) is the premier English-language journal in career counseling and development and is the official journal of the National Career Development Association (NCDA). It was first published in 1911.

CDQ publishes articles on career counseling, individual and organizational career development, work and leisure, career education, career coaching, and career management. Each article includes implications for practice as CDQ is especially focused on fostering career development through the design and use of career interventions. The methodologies that are used in CDQ articles include, but are not limited to, literature reviews that make research accessible to practitioners, case studies, history and public policy analyses, qualitative research, and quantitative research that is of specific relevance to the practice of career development.

CDQ is consistently rated highly among all of the applied psychology journals based on the Social Sciences Citation Index issued each year, published by the Institute of Scientific Information, and reported in its publication, Journal Citation Reports. It tracks the number of times original scientific articles are cited in other journals as a reflection of the impact each article (and collectively, each journal) has on the body of scientific literature during that year. Thus, the more times an article is cited from a journal the more stature it and the journal have as a meaningful contributor to the scientific literature. That impact rating, reflecting the level of academic excellence of the journal, is then used to rank all the journals in the applied psychology field that includes CDQ.

Since 1988, CDQ has published a comprehensive annual review of the professional literature in career counseling and development titled “Practice and Research in Career Counseling and Development.” These reviews are developed and written by accomplished professionals who synthesize the professional literature for that year around the theme, What can the practitioner learn from this year’s literature? These annual reviews are the most requested online articles of all the articles published in CDQ.

The CDQ Editorial Board comprises senior career counseling and development professionals who are selected to a 2-year term with a maximum of three consecutive terms. The CDQ editor recommends individuals for appointment with the election by the NCDA Board of Directors. Reviewers are expected to complete at least one review per month. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (current edition) serves as the style manual for CDQ.

CDQ has evolved from its original 1911 format and has had name changes that were appropriate to its evolution. CDQ was published as the Vocational Guidance Newsletter (1911-1914, Frederick J. Allen, editor), Vocational Guidance Bulletin (1915-1918), The National Vocational Guidance Association Bulletin (1921-1924), The Vocational Guidance Magazine, Organ of the National Vocational Guidance Association (1924-1933), Occupations: The Vocational Guidance Magazine (the official origin of the NVGA; 1933-1944), Occupations: The Vocational Guidance Journal (1944-1952), The Vocational Guidance Quarterly (1952-1986), and the Career Development Quarterly (1986-present).

Recently, technology has had an effect upon how CDQ is published and accessed by readers. CDQ continues to be published in a print format, but in 2000, CDQ articles were first allowed to be accessed online, although full-text articles were only available one year after publication. In 2005, that restriction was removed and all articles were available for immediate electronic access upon publication. Also in 2005, CDQ moved to a completely electronic manuscript submission and review process.

Further information on CDQ including information for authors is available at the NCDA’s Web site.

Reference:

•             National Career Development Association: http://www.ncda.org/aws/NCDA/pt/sp/home_page

See also:

• Counseling Psychology