Awareness Comparison in Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy of University Students with and without Disabilities

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the career decision-making self-efficacy of university students with and without disabilities and to examine the characteristics of the career decision-making self-efficacy of students with disabilities by analyzing the differences in their background variables and subscales. The study participants were 30 university students with disabilities who attend J university, which has a disabled student support center, and 60 university students without disabilities. Their self-efficacy was measured by the Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Scale–Short Form, which consists of five subscales. The results form this study are as follow: First, the results of a comparison of the factors of the career decision self-efficacy of university students with and without disabilities indicated that students without a disability had higher levels of information gathering than those with a disability, and that there was no difference in the levels by academic field. Second, a comparison of the factors representing background variables indicated that physical science and engineering university students with disabilities showed more meaningful differences than arts and social science students in the following areas, ordered from greatest to least difference: accurate self-appraisal, problem solving, and making plans for the future. Students in the Received(August 06, 2014), Review request(August 07, 2014), Review Result(1st: August 22, 2014) Accepted(December 10, 2014) Publish(December 31, 2014) 560-759 Dept. Secondary Special Education, Jeonju Univ., 303 Cheonjam-ro, Wansan-gu, Jeonju, Korea email: leeoug@jj.ac.kr Awareness Comparison in Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy of University Students with and without Disabilities Copyright c 2014 SERSC 314 upper grade had higher levels than those in the lower grade, and students with in grades 4-5 had the highest level of factors like target selection, information gathering, and problem solving.