The purpose of this study was to examine the role of parental support on the relationship between career barriers and career attitude maturity. 615 third grade students at two middle schools in Daegu province were surveyed by self-report instrument an...
The purpose of this study was to examine the role of parental support on the relationship between career barriers and career attitude maturity. 615 third grade students at two middle schools in Daegu province were surveyed by self-report instrument and 99 students were excluded from the data set due to the incomplete and unfaithful response. The parental support, career barriers for adolescents, career attitude maturity were assessed by self-report instruments.
The SPSS 18.0 was used to examine descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation analysis, and Cronbach's alpha. Three-step mediated regression analysis and Sobel's test were conducted to examine the mediation effects of career barriers between parental support and career attitude maturity. Hierarchical regression analysis were conducted to examine the moderating effects of parental support on the relationship between career barriers and career attitude maturity.
The major findings are as follows:
First, there was a significant negative correlation between parental support, career attitude maturity and career barriers. In addition, parental support and career attitude maturity had a positive correlation.
Second, girls had higher perceived parental support and career attitude maturity than boys. There was no significant difference in the whole career barriers according to gender. But girl had higher scores on perceived lack of self-understanding, uncertainty about future and financial difficulties, among the sub-factors of career barriers, than boys.
Third, career barriers had full mediation effects on the relationship between parental support and career attitude maturity. Specifically, there were full mediation effects of instrumental help, verbal encouragement, emotional support among the sub-factors of parental support, and were partial mediation effects of career modeling.
Forth, there were moderated effects of parental support on the relationship between career barriers and career attitude maturity. To be more specific, among the sub-factors of career barriers, moderated effects of parental support were showed in gender role conflict and sex discrimination, conflicts with significant others, uncertainty about the future, lack of career and job information, financial difficulties.
The implications for the educational practice were as follows.
First, this study evidenced that parental support played an important role to adolescents in lowering career barriers and raising career attitude maturity. It means that schools need to provide more parents education for more effective parental support.
Second, this study proved that there were significant differences, in the whole of parental support and career attitude maturity, in the sub-factors of career barriers, according to gender. Therefore, schools need to provide differentiated career education by gender.
Third, parental support had effects on career attitude maturity mediated by career barriers. So, we need to teach about career barriers of adolescents and how to lowering it effectively in parents education.
Forth, this study showed parental support had a moderating effect on the relationship between career barriers and career attitude maturity. It means that parental support can lower the negative effects of career barriers on career attitude maturity. The results suggest that parents education and career education for adolescents should be combined effectively to minimize the negative effects of career barriers and maximize career attitude maturity.