A cross-cultural analysis on career decision making of the students: the role of self-awareness and self-efficacy

Abstract

The present study aimed at finding out the factors that affect the students' career decision making in two different cultures (Italian and Turkish). The research evaluated the career decision making self-efficacy scale-short form (Betz et al., 1996; Chaney et al., 2007) and self-consciousness scale (SCS) of the Scheier and Carver (1985). Responses are collected from 291 undergraduate students of the Yeni Yuzyil University in İstanbul and University of Torino in Turin. The objective of this study is to reveal significant factors to develop self-assessment, career awareness and goal setting competencies of the students in different cultural contexts. Our results show that there are differences between the two countries and that having a previous job experience have a strong effect on career decision making. Most importantly, in order to give more explanatory information about the factors that affect career decision making in university students, this is one of the first studies that tested and found evidence of the relevance of self-awareness.