It is necessary to support undergraduates’ career preparation based on practical research results not only in the cognitive domains but also in the behavioral domains, typically career preparation behavior, because undergraduate students must substa...
It is necessary to support undergraduates’ career preparation based on practical research results not only in the cognitive domains but also in the behavioral domains, typically career preparation behavior, because undergraduate students must substantially prepare for their own careers during the university days. Based on this need of research, the main goal of this study was to identify the structural relations between career decision making self-efficacy, self-directed learning, career resilience, and career preparation behavior of undergraduate Students in Korea. More specific research objectives were as follows: Firstly, to identify the causal structural model fitness; Secondly, to identify direct impacts between variables; and Thirdly, to identify the mediation effects of self-directed learning and career resilience.
The population for this study was undergraduate students attending 4-year universities in Korea, and a total of 490 students from 7 universities were sampled using stratified, cluster, and ratio sampling methods. The instrument consisted of career decision self-efficacy, self-directed learning, career resilience, career preparation behavior, and demographic items and those items were selected from previous studies. The reliability and the validity of the instrument were secured through pilot and main data collection. The pilot data collection was conducted from September 20th to 23rd, 2023 and some items were modified based on the pilot test result. The main data collection was conducted from September 25th to October 10th, 2003. A total of 560 copies of the instrument were distributed, and a total of 399 copies were used for final data analysis. IBM SPSS Statistics 21.0 and Amos 24.0 were used for data analysis, the statistical significance level was set at .05, and structural equation model analysis was used as a statistical method to verify the research hypothesis.
The conclusions obtained through this study were as follows: Firstly, undergraduate students’ career decision making self-efficacy has a direct positive impact on self-direct learning. This means that the more students have faith that they can make wise career decision, the more prepared they are to control their own internal or external factors as learners; Secondly, undergraduate students’ career decision making self-efficacy has a direct positive impact on career resilience. This means that the more students have faith in wise career decision making, the better they can cope with difficult situations related to their careers; Third, undergraduate students’ self-directed learning has a direct positive impact on career resilience. This means that the more prepared they are to control their internal or external factors, the more efforts they will make to actively cope with various environmental changes or difficult situations related to their careers; Fourthly, undergraduate students' career resilience has a direct positive effect on career preparation behavior. This means that students who respond flexibly to their career-related environment have a higher level of career preparation behavior; Fifthly, undergraduate students’ self-directed learning has a direct positive impact on career preparation behavior. This means that the more learners have a self-directed learning attitude and behavior, the higher their career preparation behavior becomes; and Sixthly, undergraduate students’ career decision making self-efficacy has a direct positive effect on career preparation behavior. This means that students who have greater belief that they can successfully perform the tasks necessary in career decision making process are more likely to display career preparation behavior.
Based on the above conclusions and research process, suggestions for follow-up research are as follows: Firstly, there is a need to conduct research with expanded samples in the future. The results of this study showed that there are differences in career preparation behavior by grade, so in the future, it is necessary to expand the sample and conduct research to confirm differences by grade. In the case of freshmen, there is a possibility that they have not yet performed specific career preparation behaviors and may not yet have matured in terms of career resilience, so it is necessary to examine whether career preparation behaviors increase as the grades go up; Secondly, there is a need to establish a structural model that considers career decision level variables. Career preparation behavior can be greatly influenced by the level of career decision making, so it is necessary to conduct follow-up research including career decision level variables; and Thirdly, since the variables related to undergraduate students' career preparation behavior have been revealed through this study, it is necessary to conduct more detailed research on the career guidance system and what preparations are needed within universities to support these preceding variables.