As adolescence is the last stage to prepare for adulthood, it is a period in which an adolescent begins knowing himself/herself and to prepare for the future. However, adolescent of our country are living in a social environment in which only academic...
As adolescence is the last stage to prepare for adulthood, it is a period in which an adolescent begins knowing himself/herself and to prepare for the future. However, adolescent of our country are living in a social environment in which only academic performance and college entrance examination are emphasized. Thus, they are tried to their school studies and finally attend an institute of higher education without any concrete purpose, rather than preparing for an organized path through a deep self-reflection. Also, after going to an institute of higher education, many adolescents still face difficulties in a problem to adapt to their major subject and their future career. As such a problem has been appearing as a social problem, the government and schools have been seeking various methods to solve the problem with adolescent's career course. However, these methods focus on guides and information offer to go to an advanced school, and thus they are not fundamental solutions to help adolescents maturity choose their course.
Thus, the research systematically investigates for adolescents how self-esteem and attachment variables such as parent attachment, friend attachment, and teacher attachment influence their career maturity through the course analysis.
Three-year data of the panel in Korea Youth Panel Survey(KYPS), which has been being carried out from 2004, was used for the research. The response result of 3,125 students was used as analysis data. The research data were analyzed with SPSS Win 15.0 program. In addition, frequencyanalysis, descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test, reliability analysis(Cronbach'α), Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient, multiple regression analysis were carried out.
The following results were deduced from data the were analyzed according to the purpose of the research.
First the following is the general tendency of independent variables and dependent variables that were responded from surveyed students. The average score of self-esteem of adolescents, which is an independent variables, is 3.32. This figure belongs to the 'ordinary score' and 'relatively high score', because 5 score is a standard score. The average score of parent attachment of the surveyed students is 3.43. The figure also belongs to the ‘ordinary score’ and ‘relatively high score.’ The total average score of friend attachment is 3.65, which belongs to the ‘ordinary score’ and ‘relatively high score.’ The total average score of teacher attachment is 2.63, which belongs to the ‘relatively low score’ and ‘ordinary score.’ The figure indicates that the tendency of teacher attachment of the surveyed students belongs to a week negative level. In addition, the average score of career maturity of adolescents is 3.70, which belongs to the ‘ordinary score' and 'relatively high score.
Second, in order to see whether there are statistically meaningful difference in an average score of each variable between the gender of adolescent, independent sample t-test were carried out. The result is that there are meaningful differences between genders in the levels of career maturity, self-esteem, and parent attachment, except teacher attachment and friend attachment. In the cases of career maturity and parent attachment, female adolescents show a meaningful higher average than male adolescents. In the case of self-esteem, male adolescents show a statistically meaningful high average than female adolescents.
Third, as a result that each course analysis was carried out for the casual models of male and female adolescents, self-esteem(β=.195, p<.001) directly and the most influenced the career maturity of male adolescents followed by friend attachment(β=.151, p<.001) and parent attachment(β=.090, p<.05) in order. Teacher attachment did not directly influence the career maturity. Also, parent attachment(β=.247, p<.001), friend attachment(β=.188, p<.05), and teacher attachment(β =.075, p<.001) indirectly affected the career maturity using self-esteem as a medium. Like the case of male adolescents, self-esteem(β=.165, p<001) of female adolescents directly and the most influenced the career maturity followed by friend attachment(β=.097, p<.001) and parent attachment (β=.066, p<.05). Teacher attachment did not directly affect the career maturity. Also, parent attachment(β=.250, p<.001), friend attachment(β=.189, p<.001), and teacher attachment(β=.085, p<.001) indirectly affected the career maturity using self-esteem as a medium.
Based on these results, it is important that adolescents have stable relationships with parents, friends, and teachers in order to increase their career maturity. As practical plans related with these results, policy proposals such as an increase of the relation between parents and children through family education, course guides for adolescents to develop their interest and ability, a connection between schools and the Healthy Family-Support Center to guide students more effectively and specially, an increase of counseling teachers, a mentoring system between teachers and friends, programs for career course participated with parents were suggested.