2026 ALISE Annual Conference

This study explores how exploratory college students navigate career decision-making across institutional and digital information environments. Drawing on interviews and students’ digital traces, findings suggest that career information behavior extends beyond occupational information seeking to include implicit self-understandings, evolving career stories, and articulation processes shaped through everyday digital engagements and institutional contexts. The findings expand understandings of career information behavior by emphasizing the role of articulation and implicit self-understandings in career decision-making.