The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between family strength perceived by adolescents and their career maturity.
The subjects in this study were middle school boys and girls. As students usually make a career choice in their middl...
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between family strength perceived by adolescents and their career maturity.
The subjects in this study were middle school boys and girls. As students usually make a career choice in their middle school years in conjunction with high school entrance, middle school students were selected in this study. And two different instruments were used. One was Lee Eun-joo & Yoo Young-joo(1995)'s Family Strength Scale, and the other was Lee Ki-hak & Han Jong-cheol(1997)'s Career Maturity Scale that was prepared by analyzing Crites' CMI to suit Korean youth.
The collected data were analyzed by the statistical package SPSS WIN 12.0.
The major findings of the study were as follows:
First, the adolescents got a mean of 3.5 in perceived family strength, which was above the average. It indicated that they viewed their family strength positively. As for perceived family strength by gender, the girls took a more positive view of their family strength than the boys. Concerning perceived family strength by the academic credential of their parents, the educational level of their parents made no significant differences to that, but there were significant gaps according to the educational background of the fathers in family problem-solving skills. The academic background of the mothers made a significant difference to sharing a value system, one of the subfactors of family strength. As a result of investigating their family strength in consideration of the type of the occupation of their parents, there were no significant gaps according to the type of the occupation of the mothers, but significant gaps were found according to the type of the occupation of the fathers. As for the relationship of monthly family income and subjective living standard to family strength, there were no significant gaps in family strength according to monthly income, but significant gaps were found in every subfactor of family strength according to subjective living standard.
Second, the teens got a mean of 3.51 in perceived career maturity, which was above the average. It showed that their career maturity was good. Regarding career maturity by gender, the girls were ahead of the boys. As to career maturity by the academic credential of the parents, there were no significant gaps in that aspect according to the academic background of the parents, but significant gaps were found according to the educational level of the fathers in conviction, one of the subfactors of career maturity. As a result of checking their career maturity in consideration of the type of the occupation of the parents, there were no significant gaps, but the type of the occupation of the fathers made a significant difference to their determination, readiness and conviction, which were the subfactors of career maturity. No significant gaps were found according to monthly family income, and subjective living standard made a significant difference to conviction, one of the subfactors of career maturity.
Third, there was a positive correlation between perceived family strength and career maturity. This finding of the study lends credibility to the findings of earlier studies that adolescents take a more mature attitude during career choice when their families approve of the privacy of individual family members, try to have a strong mutual bond, have a good communication with one another, resolve family problems well, make it clear who should be responsible for any particular incident, share common values and observe common rules well.