The purpose of this study was to investigate the structural relationships among social support, internal attribution, self-efficacy, vocational subject class engagement, and career maturity of specialized vocational high school students. The specific ...
The purpose of this study was to investigate the structural relationships among social support, internal attribution, self-efficacy, vocational subject class engagement, and career maturity of specialized vocational high school students. The specific research objectives were as follows: First, to investigate an appropriate structural model among career maturity, social support, internal attribution, self-efficacy, and vocational subject class engagement of specialized vocational high school students. Second, to examine the direct effects among social support, internal attribution, self-efficacy, vocational subject class engagement, and career maturity. Third, to investigate the single mediating effects of self-efficacy and vocational subject class engagement on the relationship between social support or internal attribution and career maturity. Fourth, to investigate the dual mediating effects of self-efficacy and vocational subject class engagement on the relationship between social support or internal attribution and career maturity.
The population for this study was defined as all students currently enrolled in specialized vocational high schools. Considering the sufficient credit hours for vocational subjects, the sample was limited to third-year students as of March 2025. A total of 500 students were sampled using proportional stratified sampling based on region and major track.
An online survey was utilized as the data collection tool. The survey consisted of measurement tools for career maturity, social support, internal attribution, self-efficacy, and vocational subject class engagement, along with demographic questions. The instruments were selected from existing prior research and modified to fit the context of this study. The items were then reviewed for content and face validity by an expert panel, and their reliability was confirmed through a pilot study with 52 students.
Data collection was conducted online for approximately two weeks, from March 25 to April 4, 2025. With the cooperation of third-year homeroom teachers at the 15 selected schools, an online survey link was distributed to students, and a total of 495 responses were collected. After excluding careless responses and outliers, 316 valid responses were used for the final analysis. The final sample of 316 consisted of 46.5% from metropolitan areas and 53.5% from non-metropolitan areas. In terms of major track, the distribution was 46.8% in industrial, 40.5% in commercial, and 12.7% in other tracks, which was similar to the population distribution.
The main results of this study are as follows. First, the structural model, which set social support and internal attribution as exogenous variables, self-efficacy and vocational subject class engagement as mediators, and career maturity as the endogenous variable, showed a good model fit, indicating its appropriateness for confirming the relationships among the latent variables. Second, the direct path analysis revealed that social support (β = .172), internal attribution (β = .381), self-efficacy (β = .267), and vocational subject class engagement (β = .225) all had significant positive effects on career maturity. Third, social support had a significant indirect effect on career maturity, individually mediated by self-efficacy (β = .060) and vocational subject class engagement (β = .079). Internal attribution was also found to have a significant positive indirect effect on career maturity, singly mediated by self-efficacy (β = .126). Additionally, self-efficacy had a significant positive indirect effect on career maturity, singly mediated by vocational subject class engagement (β = .090). However, the effect of internal attribution on career maturity mediated by vocational subject class engagement was not statistically significant. Fourth, the dual mediation path analysis showed that both social support (β = .020) and internal attribution (β = .042) had a significant positive indirect effect on career maturity, sequentially mediated by self-efficacy and vocational subject class engagement. However, the influence of these two pathways was found to be very limited.
The main conclusions are as follows. First, the career maturity of specialized vocational high school students can be explained by the complex interactions of psychological and environmental factors, namely social support, internal attribution, self-efficacy, and vocational subject class engagement. Second, internal attribution had the strongest direct effect on career maturity, followed by self-efficacy, vocational subject class engagement, and social support. Third, social support affects career maturity through self-efficacy and vocational subject class engagement, respectively. Internal attribution positively affects career maturity through self-efficacy but not through vocational subject class engagement. Furthermore, self-efficacy was found to have a positive effect on career maturity through the mediation of vocational subject class engagement. Fourth, both social support and internal attribution, have a positive effect on career maturity through the dual sequential mediation of self-efficacy and vocational subject class engagement. The dual mediating effect of internal attribution on career maturity was stronger than that of social support.
Based on the results and conclusions, the following suggestions are made to improve the career maturity of specialized vocational high school students. First, it is necessary to consider the structural relationships among social support, internal attribution, self-efficacy, vocational subject class engagement, and career maturity to understand and promote students' career maturity levels. Second, given that internal attribution was the most influential variable, educational interventions are needed to help students attribute their successes and failures to their own abilities and efforts. Third, to effectively enhance students' career maturity, a strategy that simultaneously strengthens social support and internal attribution is necessary, rather than simply reinforcing each one individually. Fourth, support is needed to increase the relatively low levels of cognitive and emotional engagement, which were observed in the vocational subject class engagement variable.