The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among the attachment to parents, personality traits, and the career maturity of elementary school students. The research questions of this study are as follows:
1. Are there any differe...
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among the attachment to parents, personality traits, and the career maturity of elementary school students. The research questions of this study are as follows:
1. Are there any differences in the attachment to parents, personality traits, and the career maturity according to the demographic variables (gender and region) of elementary school students?
2. How far can the attachment to parents and personality traits predict the career maturity of elementary school students?
3. What are the relationships among the attachment to parents, personality traits, and the career maturity of elementary school students?
The subjects of this study were 640 students in 5th and 6th grade of 16 elementary schools in Kyungki province. The multistage clustered sampling method was used for the study. The 116 respondents were excluded in statistical analysis for their incomplete responses and unreliable answers and the final subjects for this study were 524.
The research instruments used in this study were the Parental and Peer Attachment Scale, Personality· Emotion Diagnostic Inventory, and Career Maturity Inventory, and the original forms of the instruments were modified for this study.
The statistical methods applied for the data analysis were t-test, multiple regression analysis, and path analysis. The statistical computations were done by SPSS and AMOS.
The major findings of this study were as follows:
First, in terms of gender, there were significant differences in the attachment to father, the attachment to mother, personality traits, and career maturity between female students and male students. Female students had stronger attachment to their father and mother than male students. Female students showed higher career maturity than male students. Therefore, female students appeared to be more realistic and develop more rapidly their career consciousness than male students. Also, according to regional differences, there were no significant differences in the attachment to father and mother, personal traits, and the career maturity between urban area group and suburban area group. The results show that the career maturity of the students was not influenced by regional environments.
Second, the attachment to parents had influence on personal traits, and especially the attachment to mother and personal traits had a greater influence on the career maturity of the students. Therefore, it seems that-the attachment between parents and children is an important factor for child development and parents should have good communication and mutual trustiness with their children. Also teachers should guide the students with more careful attention who have weaker attachment to their parents
Third, on the relationships among the attachment to parents, personal traits, and the career maturity, the attachment to mother was highly correlated with personal traits. The attachment to father was correlated with personal traits, but the degree of correlation between them was not high. The attachment to mother was positively correlated with career maturity, but the attachment to father was little correlated with career maturity. The results show that the students whose parents have strong trustiness and good communication with their children have better personal traits and career maturity. As the better parents and children communicate and trust each other, the positively higher career maturity develops, parents should respect, trust, and have good communication with their children. The path that the attachment to parents and personal traits affect the career maturity was structured as a model by correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis. The result of the path analysis showed that the attachment to mother had directly influence on the career maturity when personality traits was used as a mediating variable. The attachment to father did not have directly influence on the career maturity, but had indirectly influence on the career maturity through personality traits. Therefore, the future study needs to investigate the factor of attachment to father which have influence on career maturity.
The attachment between parents and children is an important factor in making a decision about career and developing children's personality. Therefore, the educational circumstances to have a good communication with parents from a child should be built up. Parents and teachers should guide children to improve their career maturity by helping them aware their own aptitudes and interests and enhance their socialities. Also parents and teachers should guide children in the stage of vocational perception, not to have misunderstanding about career, and help them improve their career development and acquire the techniques of effective decision making.