Effect of Career Days on High School Students’ Irrational Beliefs about Career Choice and on Decision Making Skills about Career

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of career days on 10th grade students' irrational beliefs about career choice and on their career decision-making skills. This research was conducted in two high schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in the 2019-2020 academic year. There are totally 102 students in the experimental and control groups. In the research, a quasi-experimental model with pretest-posttest control group was used. Within the scope of the research, ten-week career days were organized for the students in the experimental group. No career days were organized for the students in the control group. In the study, personal information form, irrational beliefs relating to career choice scale and career decision inventory were used as data collection tools. Frequency, Percentage and Arithmetic Average analysis was used for statistical information on demographic variables; Mann Whitney U test was used for the significance of the pre-test post-test difference scores of the experimental and control groups. As a result of the research it has been observed that career days are effective in reducing the irrational beliefs relating to career choice and career indecisions of the students in the experimental group. The results of this study emphasize the importance of career days on students' irrational beliefs about career choice and career decision making skills. The research findings were discussed and suggestions for future research and applications were developed.