Planning the Future: Greek Students of Secondary Education Choose to Study in Tertiary Education and Their Future Profession: A Quantitative Approach

Abstract

The decisions that male/female students should make regarding their schooling, are believed to be extremely important, since these decisions will affect the future life of students. Therefore, we attempted to explore the factors that affect students in making education and career related decisions, and which specifically apply to General High School students from various areas in mainland and insular Greece. The research objective is to study the reasons that cause students in Greek secondary education and their parents to decide for students to go to university after finishing school. In more specific, it is attempted to study the following: The factors affecting male and female students in choosing to go on into university, along with the reasons why parents believe that their children want to study, parents' aspirations regarding the career future of their children, factors that determine the students' chances of going to university, as well as factors affecting the future career choices of students according to their attitude.In the first, theoretical, part, the concept of education and career related decision-making is presented. Following that, the factors are presented that underpin both the education and career related decisions of students. Specific reference is made to personal factors, such as biological factors, e.g. gender, physical characteristics, aptitudes, etc., acquired factors, e.g. skills, values, interests, etc., and social factors, which determine education and career related decision-making, such as family, school, etc. This is followed by the second part of the article, which is the research part. In order to inquire into the factors that affect adolescents, when it comes to decisions referring to their education and career, quantitative research was conducted. More specifically, 670 questionnaires were collected from male and female students attending the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Grades of High School. The research data are analyzed, and to sum up, in the end of the article, the research conclusions will be listed.