The purpose of this study was to provide useful information for more successful career guidance programs for vocational high school students and their parents, by examining how their career decision making would be affected by their self-concept and p...
The purpose of this study was to provide useful information for more successful career guidance programs for vocational high school students and their parents, by examining how their career decision making would be affected by their self-concept and parental attitude.
The subjects in this study were 763 second graders from five vocational high schools in the city of Daegu, who included 638 boys and 125 girls.
One of the instruments used in this study was Go Hyang-ja(1992)'s Career Decision-Making Pattern Inventory, a modified Korean version of Harren(1984)'s Decision-Making Pattern Inventory, part of his ACDM, The other instruments were Heo Myo-yeon(2000)'s Paternal Behavior Scale and Song In-seop(1983)'s Self-Concept Inventory.
The major findings of this study were as below:
First, the students investigated weren't significantly influenced in career decision-making style by household economy, their own troubles or the number of friend whom they discussed their troubles with. By educational background of the parents, the academic background of their fathers didn't make any significant difference to the rational decision-making style, but it caused a significant gap between the students of intuitive or independent styles. The educational level of the mothers made no significant difference to the rational and intuitive styles, but the dependent-style students varied significantly with that. The group whose parents graduated finally from elementary school tended to make more improper career decision.
Second, by academic records, the dependent-style students weren't significantly different from one another in career decision making, but those of rational or intuitive style varied significantly. For the rational- style students, the group with excellent academic records had a tendency to make more rational career decision than the other groups with fair or poor grades. Among the intuitive-style students, the group with excellent achievement tended to make less intuitive decision than the others with fair or poor academic records.
Third, the person whom they discussed troubles with didn't make any significant difference to all the rational, intuitive and dependent styles. However, there was a tendency for the group that discussed with families to decide in more rational way, compared to the other group that didn't. And the former group tended to make less intuitive decision than the latter group or those who consulted with friends.
Fourth, gender didn't make any significant difference to the rational and intuitive styles, but the dependent style significantly varied with gender, as the dependent boy students decided in a less dependent way than their counterparts.
Fifth, the self-concept and paternal attitude made significant 12.2% prediction of the rational career decision-making style. The students of rational style made more rational decision when they had better competence self or better emotional self, among the self-concept factors, and when their parents showed less over-expectation, was less incoherent or supervised more.
Sixth, the intuitive career decision-making style was significantly predicted by 6.7% by the self-concept and parental attitude. The students of intuitive style decided more intuitively when their physical self, general self, class self and home self were poorer, and when parental attitude was more incoherent.
Finally, the self-concept and parental attitude made a significant 12.4% prediction of the dependent career decision-making style. The dependent- style students decided in a more dependent manner when their general self was poorer, and when their parents were less affectionate, give less rational explanation, made more over-intervention, or were more incoherent.