Ideal Careers Perceived by Education Major Undergraduates in Taiwan

Hsuan‐Fu Ho

doi:10.5539/ies.v6n4p39

Abstract

The higher educational institutions produce several times as many college graduates each year as there are jobs available recently in Taiwan. This coupled with the deep recession of economy in recent years have contributed to the intensified competition for jobs. The fierce unemployment among young people has revived the demand on the contribution of educational system to the employability of college graduates. Since exploring how students define an ideal job is a prerequisite for guiding them get a job that better matches their skills and desires, this research is thus endeavored to identify the major determinants of career selection, to calculate the relative importance of each determinant, and to decide the major strengths of different careers. AHP was adopted as the major tool for calculating the relative importance of the determinants of career selection, Correspondence Analysis was used to create perceptual map for identifying major strengths of different careers. The results showed that Career Security and Retirement Policy were the most important determinants of job selection; moreover, students major in education preferred careers in public sectors such as public school teacher and government official.

Highlights

For the past decades, many countries have been giving increasing emphasis on expanding their higher educational system, in the belief that the expansion will contribute to equal education opportunity and economic growth, and will meet the increasing demand for knowledge and skills that associated with the advent of knowledge-based economy (Teichler, 1999;Yorke and Knight, 2006; Barone and Ortiz, 2010)
Understanding that different careers have different benefits can help students to select in a timely manner the most appropriate career
Since exploring how students define an ideal job is a prerequisite for guiding them get a job that better matches their skills and desires, this research is endeavored to identify the major determinants of career selection perceived by students, to calculate the relative importance of each determinant, and to decide the major strengths of different careers

Summary

Introduction

Many countries have been giving increasing emphasis on expanding their higher educational system, in the belief that the expansion will contribute to equal education opportunity and economic growth, and will meet the increasing demand for knowledge and skills that associated with the advent of knowledge-based economy (Teichler, 1999;Yorke and Knight, 2006; Barone and Ortiz, 2010). The higher educational institutions produce several times as many college graduates each year as there are jobs available in Taiwan. Higher education graduates can hardly find adequate employment upon graduation, and many graduates are placed in jobs not comparable to their qualification, still many are lacking security of their working life (Yang, Chen, and Fan, 2010). This fierce unemployment among young people has revived the demand on the contribution of educational system to the employability of college graduates (Cassidy and Wright, 2008; Perez, Garrouste, and Kozovska, 2010; Núñez and Livanos, 2010)

Methods

Results

Conclusion