Although the high school years are a critical period for students to decide their own career or occupation, a lot of students just choose a college or major according to their parents' wish or their grades without considering their own interest or apt...
Although the high school years are a critical period for students to decide their own career or occupation, a lot of students just choose a college or major according to their parents' wish or their grades without considering their own interest or aptitude. That results in making them drop out or face conflicts after college graduation, which puts a great strain on not only themselves but the nation. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of social support and career decision-making self-efficacy, two of influential variables for career development, on career preparation behavior and the possible mediation effect of career decision-making self-efficacy on the relationship between social support and career preparation behavior. The subjects in this study were 456 students in an academic high school located in Jinhae, South Gyeongsang Province, who included 222 boys and 234 girls. A survey was conducted, and the findings of the study were as follows:
First, as a result of making a correlation analysis of the connections among social support, career decision-making self-efficacy and career preparation behavior, social support was found to have a positive correlation to career decision-making self-efficacy and career preparation behavior. It implied that the students who were given more social support had a better career decision-making self-efficacy and showed more career preparation behavior. Also, it's found that the students who had a better career decision-making self-efficacy showed more career preparation behavior.
Second, whether career decision-making self-efficacy served as a mediator between social support and wellbeing, part of career preparation behavior, was analyzed. And the finding about it could be interpreted that career decision-making self-efficacy had a mediation effect on the relationship between social support and career preparation behavior. The independent variable still exerted a significant influence when the mediator was controlled, and it indicated that the mediator produced a partial mediation effect.
Third, career decision-making self-efficacy was found to have a partial mediation effect on the relationship between parent support, one of the subfactors of social support, and career preparation behavior as well, and that also has a partial mediation effect on the relationship between teacher support and career preparation behavior.
The findings of the study illustrated that the career preparation behavior of the high school students was under the positive influence of support from parents and teachers, and that support from parents and teachers had an indirect impact on career preparation behavior through career decision-making self-efficacy at the same time. The findings of the study suggest that in order to boost the career preparation behavior of adolescents, it's important for parents and teachers to have a positive relationship with them and to instill confidence in them so that they could have confidence that they can do well. It's found that the correlation of social support, career decision-making self-efficacy and career preparation behavior was relatively weaker among the students who received career counseling than among those who didn't, and it could be interpreted that an offer of career counseling makes it possible to make up for the weakness of students who find themselves to be given less social support or whose career decision-making self-efficacy isn't good enough. Accordingly, it's required to take measures to provide every school with a career counselor to let lots of students benefit from career counseling service.