The purpose of this study is to take a close look at moderation effect of decision-making self-efficacy within the relationship between career preparing behavior and jobs seeking stress in university students.
In order to meet this purpose, 413 colleg...
The purpose of this study is to take a close look at moderation effect of decision-making self-efficacy within the relationship between career preparing behavior and jobs seeking stress in university students.
In order to meet this purpose, 413 college students from 13 universities in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province and 2 colleges from Busan were interviewed with questionnaires on career preparing behavior, jobs seeking stress, and decision-making self-efficacy. With the collected data, variables were grouped and analyzed with one-way analysis of variance to find out the difference between gender and grade. Next, Pearson correlation analysis was used to find out the relevance between the variables. Then, regression analysis was done to find out jobs seeking stress prediction capabilities of career preparing behavior and decision-making self-efficacy. At last, another regression analysis was done to find out the moderation effect of decision-making self-efficacy within the relationship between career preparing behavior and jobs seeking stress.
The results of this study is as follows:
First, there was no significant gender difference in career preparing behavior, jobs seeking stress, and decision-making self-efficacy. However, in regards to personality stress, which is a subordinate factor of jobs seeking stress, was significantly higher in female students than male students. In regards to career preparing behavior and jobs seeking stress, juniors showed higher level of stress than freshmen and sophomores, and seniors than juniors. Sophomores, juniors, and seniors recorded higher in decision-making self-efficacy than freshmen, as well. In other words, there was significant difference in grades.
Secondly, the study took a close look at the correlation between career preparing behavior, jobs seeking stress, and decision-making self-efficacy according to grades. Freshmen and sophomores showed .50 higher level of positive relationship between jobs seeking stress and career preparing behavior, and juniors and seniors showed .15 to .19 level, a much lower positive relationship. In other words, the more students engaged in career preparing behavior, the higher jobs seeking stress was. Moreover, in regards to the correlation between jobs seeking stress and decision-making self-efficacy, there was no significant relationship between the two in freshmen and sophomores, but there was significant negative relationship in juniors and seniors. In addition, because there was significant relevance between jobs seeking stress and decision-making self-efficacy in juniors and seniors, control effect investigation was done only on juniors and seniors.
Third, in order to see if there was significant prediction of jobs seeking stress from career preparing behavior and decision-making self-efficacy, stepwise regression analysis was done, and the results showed that for students of all grades, career preparing behavior led to significant prediction of jobs seeking stress. As for the subordinate factors of decision-making self-efficacy, in case of freshmen and sophomores, the subordinate factors did not lead to any significant prediction of jobs seeking stress, but in case of juniors and seniors, problem solving and job information, subordinate factors of decision-making self-efficacy, led to significant prediction of jobs seeking stress.
Fourth, when it comes to the relationship between career preparing behavior and jobs seeking stress, hierarchical regression analysis was done to find out the moderation effect of decision-making self-efficacy. The results showed that there was significant interaction. Regardless of the level of decision-making self-efficacy, the group with high preparing behavior level showed higher level of jobs seeking stress than the group with low preparing behavior level. But when it came to the group with low decision-making self-efficacy level, compared to the group with high level, the higher the level of career preparing behavior level, the more stress.
In conclusion, the study found out that there was significant moderation effect of decision-making self-efficacy within the relationship between career preparing behavior and jobs seeking stress. The study proved that when helping college students facing difficulties due to career and jobs seeking matters, it is important to help them attain decision-making self-efficacy rather than simply providing career-related information and urging them to engage in more preparation.