Career Choice Process Research Articles

A Qualitative Research on Career Story and Career Choice Process of Middle School Students

A Qualitative Research on Career Story and Career Choice Process of Middle School Students

Career Metaphors and Significant Childhood Experiences in Social Entrepreneurs’ Career Choice

This article examines the role of childhood experiences and metaphors in social entrepreneurs’ (SEs) career choice processes through a psychoanalytic lens. Metaphors are a unique projective tool to explore SEs’ subconscious processes. A total of 104 in-depth semi-structured interviews and 24 in-depth life-story interviews with SEs were conducted based on psychoanalytic theories emphasising family dynamics, childhood experiences and mental processes. The SEs were asked about significant childhood experiences and for a metaphor that describes their occupation. The metaphors they chose were justice fighter, caregiver, creator, leader and martyr. Thematic analysis showed specific recurrent significant negative childhood experiences, especially loneliness, family crisis and abuse and feeling lost, among others. Analysis revealed strong correspondence between specific metaphors and childhood experiences. Interpreted through a psychoanalytic lens, these findings denote compensation processes that underlie career choices and offer a deeper understanding of how and why SEs choose, develop and narrate their careers. In conclusion, using such psychoanalytical tools is recommended in SEs’ career training.

"Connecting the Dots” for Recruiting Secondary Science Teachers in Urban Schools: An Exploration of Career Choice for Undergraduate Science Majors

Despite critical shortages of secondary science teachers in urban schools, relatively little research has focused on the recruitment of undergraduate science majors to teach in urban contexts. This study utilized a retrospective narrative inquiry methodology to explore the career pathways of 14 undergraduate science majors into secondary science teaching. The primary data source was interviews that were conducted at the beginning of an urban teacher education program. Interviews were analyzed through the framework of social cognitive career theory (SCCT) to identify the characteristics, beliefs, and experiences that featured prominently in their narrativizations of their career pathway into urban science education. Findings highlight a non-linear process of career choice characterized by three themes: rejecting traditional science careers, reevaluating their interests and skills for teaching, and prioritizing socially oriented career goals. Implications for enhancing the recruitment of undergraduate science majors into urban science teaching include transforming undergraduate science majors to value teaching careers and taking a more community-based approach to science teacher recruitment.

Training Teachers for the Career Guidance of High School Students

The article addresses the decision-making process of career choice among high-school students and emphasizes the importance of supporting their informed decisions by trained teachers acting as career-guidance counselors. While, ideally, school counselors handle career counseling, their limited availability necessitates the involvement of other resources, such as trained teachers. The present study introduces a career-guidance training program for teachers, implemented with 20 Romanian and 20 Serbian teachers. The research conducted simultaneously with the training aimed to assess the effectiveness of this cross-national program in enhancing teachers’ competence in career guidance. Utilizing a longitudinal mixed methodology, the study assessed the teachers’ perceptions of the training’s effectiveness and sustainability over a period of 24 months. Two questionnaires featuring multiple-choice and open-choice questions were employed. The results consistently indicated that teachers rated the training as excellent or very good across various dimensions, including content, trainers, didactic materials, and applications. Challenges were noted in designing and implementing group career activities compared to individual ones, with no significant differences observed between Serbian and Romanian teachers. After 24 months, a deductive content analysis of open-ended questions assessed the sustainability of acquired competencies. Our findings indicated active teacher participation in career-guidance activities, primarily with final-year students serving as class teachers or subject instructors. In the context of a scarcity of career-counseling specialists, training teachers as career-guidance advisors emerges as a viable solution. The study highlights the potential of such training programs to address the critical need for comprehensive career guidance in schools.

Exploring Medical Career Choice to Better Inform Swiss Physician Workforce Planning: Protocol for a National Cohort Study.

A medical student's career choice directly influences the physician workforce shortage and the misdistribution of resources. First, individual and contextual factors related to career choice have been evaluated separately, but their interaction over time is unclear. Second, actual career choice, reasons for this choice, and the influence of national political strategies are currently unknown in Switzerland. The overall objective of this study is to better understand the process of Swiss medical students' career choice and to predict this choice. Our specific aims will be to examine the predominately static (ie, sociodemographic and personality traits) and predominately dynamic (ie, learning context perceptions, anxiety state, motivation, and motives for career choice) variables that predict the career choice of Swiss medical school students, as well as their interaction, and to examine the evolution of Swiss medical students' career choice and their ultimate career path, including an international comparison with French medical students. The Swiss Medical Career Choice study is a national, multi-institution, and longitudinal study in which all medical students at all medical schools in Switzerland are eligible to participate. Data will be collected over 4 years for 4 cohorts of medical students using questionnaires in years 4 and 6. We will perform a follow-up during postgraduate training year 2 for medical graduates between 2018 and 2022. We will compare the different Swiss medical schools and a French medical school (the University of Strasbourg Faculty of Medicine). We will also examine the effect of new medical master's programs in terms of career choice and location of practice. For aim 2, in collaboration with the Swiss Institute for Medical Education, we will implement a national career choice tracking system and identify the final career choice of 2 cohorts of medical students who graduated from 4 Swiss medical schools from 2010 to 2012. We will also develop a model to predict their final career choice. Data analysis will be conducted using inferential statistics, and machine learning approaches will be used to refine the predictive model. This study was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation in January 2023. Recruitment began in May 2023. Data analysis will begin after the completion of the first cohort data collection. Our research will inform national stakeholders and medical schools on the prediction of students' future career choice and on key aspects of physician workforce planning. We will identify targeted actions that may be implemented during medical school and may ultimately influence career choice and encourage the correct number of physicians in the right specialties to fulfill the needs of currently underserved regions. DERR1-10.2196/53138.

Dynamics of Students’ Career Choice: a Conceptual Framework–Based Qualitative Analysis Focusing on Primary Care

BackgroundIncreasing primary care’s attractiveness as a career choice is an important task of socially accountable medical schools. Research has broadly studied influences on medical students’ career choice. However, a deeper understanding of the processes behind career decision-making could support medical schools in their efforts to promote primary care careers.ObjectiveTo explore the dynamics of career choice during medical school with a focus on primary care, based on a previously developed conceptual framework.ApproachQualitative study using a phenomenological, inductive-deductive approachDesign and ParticipantsIndividual interviews were conducted from May 2019 to January 2020 with 14 first-year postgraduate trainee physicians, graduates of the Faculty of Medicine in Geneva, Switzerland, purposively sampled based on their interest in primary care during undergraduate studies. The interview guide was developed to elicit narratives about career-related decision-making. Two authors coded the transcripts. Thematic analysis alternated with data collection until thematic saturation was reached. Emerging themes were discussed and refined within the research team.Key ResultsTwo main themes emerged: (1) developing professional identity, expressed as a changing professional image from unprecise and idealistic to concrete and realistic; priorities changed from content-based to lifestyle-based preferences; (2) individual trajectories of career-related decision-making, determined by different stages of refining professional interests; students navigated this process by employing various strategies, ranging from active exploration to passive behaviors.ConclusionsThis study’s narrative approach illustrates the dynamic nature of career choice and refines elements of a conceptual framework previously developed by the authors. Its findings underline the importance of exploration, for which personal experiences and observations of physicians’ work are crucial. To advance efforts to make primary care a more attractive career, students must be sufficiently exposed to primary care in a safe and individualized environment and should be supported in all stages of their career choice process.

Career Choices, Representation of Work and Future Planning: A Qualitative Investigation with Italian University Students

Choosing a career is one of the most challenging for young adults, and the representations of work could influence how people make decisions and build their career paths. This qualitative study examined the career choices, representations of work and future plans of 58 Italian university students. Semi-structured interviews were analyzed using a consensual qualitative research procedure. The results emphasize the centrality of environmental conditions and internal factors such as vocation and internal resources in career choice processes. Also crucial is students’ discussion of the meaning attributed to work as good for oneself and others. Finally, most students present in their narratives, clear future plans. Findings suggest themes to explore in career guidance interventions. Unpacking the influences of choices and working on the meaning attributed to work appears pivotal to career counseling interventions to orient young people toward powerfully pursuing their career choices.

Perceived support and influences in adolescents’ career choices: a mixed-methods study

AbstractSupport and influences on adolescents’ career choices come from a variety of sources. However, studies comparing the importance given to various sources of support are few, and none have analyzed differences in the support provided by mothers and fathers. This study aimed to examine quantitatively the importance given to support from various sources in a sample of 432 Swiss adolescents at two points in time in the period of choice and to explore qualitatively experiences related to support given/received by 10 mother–child dyads in the career choice process. The overall results endorse the mother as the main source of support.

Career Choice With the Serious Game Like2be

Choosing a career is an important biographical event for adolescents. Toward the end of compulsory education, they must decide which career path they want to pursue. The serious game like2be was developed to support adolescents in this individual career choice process. In a quasi-experimental intervention study with 809 adolescents, like2be was evaluated for its effectiveness in career choice classes at the lower secondary level. In addition, a teaching concept for the application of the serious game which included additional teaching materials was analyzed. The data show that like2be is an effective medium for broadening personal career choice horizons, especially when it is pedagogically well-founded and integrated into career choice classes. Although the effectiveness of like2be in stimulating intensive reflection on one's own vocational aptitude or a gender-sensitive attitude towards occupations is limited, the present study shows that like2be has major potential for supporting the process of career choice among adolescents.

Parental Involvement as Correlate of Career Decision-Making Among Secondary School Students in Oyo State, Nigeria

The decision of choosing a career is a pivotal point in students’ life and could significantly impact personal satisfaction, financial stability, and overall well-being students of today face increasingly complex landscape of career options, making the process of career choice more challenging and daunting. It is against this backdrop that the study investigated parental involvement as correlates of career decision-making among secondary school students in Oyo State, Nigeria. Descriptive survey research design of correlational types was adopted in the study and the population of the study included 371, 040 secondary school students in Oyo State. The sample size was 384 secondary school students which was determined using Krejcie and Morgan sample size determination table. Questionnaire was the instrument used in the collection of data and data were analysed using simple percentage, Pearson product moment correlation (PPMC) and simple regression at 0.05 level of significance. Results revealed that there was significant positive relationship between parental involvement and career decision-making (r = 0.503, p<.05). There was a significant influence of parental involvement and career decision-making, (F (1, 382) = 66.484, p<0.05), and parental involvement contributed 10.6 to the prediction of career decision-making. It was concluded that parents have a strong influence over the choices of career decision that their children make. It was recommended that giving negative comments about different careers by parents should be avoided. This is because children are susceptible to careless comments parents make about good and bad professions as this could make them to lose interest in their dream careers.

Nach den Berufswahlpraktika ist vor der Wahl des Ausbildungsberufs: Vorhersage des Entscheids für die Weiterverfolgung eines Praktikumberufs im Berufswahlprozess

ZusammenfassungIn diesem Artikel wurde untersucht, welche Faktoren dazu führen, dass Jugendliche einen in ihren Schnupperlehren und Berufswahlpraktika ausprobierten Beruf (Praktikumberuf) in ihrem Berufswahlprozess als potenzieller Ausbildungsberuf weiterverfolgen. Als theoretische Grundlage für die Analysen diente Gottfredsons Theory of Circumscription, Compromise, and Self-Creation (TCCSC). Nach Geschlechter getrennt wurde eine Längsschnittstichprobe von 128 weiblichen und 202 männlichen Jugendlichen analysiert, die im siebten und neunten Schuljahr standardisierte Fragebögen ausfüllten und angaben, nach der obligatorischen Schulzeit eine berufliche Grundbildung zu beginnen. Die gerechneten Regressionsmodelle zeigten, dass das Lehrstellenangebot den Weiterverfolgungsentscheid für weibliche wie auch für männliche Jugendliche am stärksten beeinflusst (positiver Effekt). Ausschließlich bei den weiblichen Jugendlichen hat sich gezeigt, dass neben dem Lehrstellenangebot das Ausmaß führend-verkaufender Anforderungen des ausprobierten Praktikumberufs den Entscheid signifikant negativ beeinflusst. Die Ergebnisse stützen die in der TCCSC postulierte Zugänglichkeitsthese, wonach Personen Berufe mit größerer Wahrscheinlichkeit weiterverfolgen, wenn für diese Berufe eine gute Zugänglichkeit im Sinne eines großen Lehrstellenangebots besteht. Eine mögliche Erklärung für den negativen Einfluss führend-verkaufender Anforderungen auf den Weiterverfolgungsentscheid bei weiblichen Jugendlichen ist vor dem Hintergrund des in der TCCSC enthaltenen Kompatibilitätsgedankens, dass weibliche Jugendliche ihre führend-verkaufenden Fähigkeiten möglicherweise als zu gering einschätzen. Infolgedessen nehmen sie Berufe mit hohen führend-verkaufenden Anforderungen als für sich inkompatibel wahr und wenden sich von diesen Berufen ab. Diese Studie konnte mit der Untersuchung der Rolle von Praktikaberufen für den weiteren beruflichen Verlauf eine Lücke in der Berufswahlforschung angehen und bietet wichtige Anknüpfungspunkte für zukünftige Analysen.

Career choice in gifted students with interests in STEM

ABSTRACT The areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics have an impact on countries’ social and economic transformation, innovation, and sustainable development; women's participation, however, in science and mathematics careers, has remained scarce. This remains true for gifted women, that is, women who display high cognitive potential, which leads to less inclusive societies that squander an important part of their talent. Through a qualitative study, gender differences in the career choice process of gifted students with STEM interests were examined. Thirty students in their last year of high school (15 women and 15 men) with the above-mentioned characteristics participated by responding to an in-depth interview. Findings show that, for both genders, academic decisions are mainly determined by individual factors linked to giftedness characteristics, academic/cognitive skills and interests, and contextual factors linked to family, school, and experiences of others who study or work in the STEM areas of interest. The implications of these findings are discussed, suggesting the need to create more inclusive school environments and vocational guidance to offer these students, highlighting the urgency to promote greater female participation in STEM.

STEM students’ career choice for teaching: studying career choice processes using personal projects

ABSTRACT Understanding how teaching interest and motivation develop during the academic STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) study program is essential to design effective interventions to increase teacher recruitment. This article describes a new approach to study STEM teachers’ career choice processes. The retrospective method, which is based on personal projects analysis, focuses on the career choice process of STEM teachers during the academic study program as well as on their current personal values and goals, and the interconnection between these two. Evaluation took place in a small-scale explorative study with recently graduated STEM teachers. The results illustrate that the methodology provides insight into STEM teachers’ career choice processes in a personally salient and ecologically valid way. The use of personal projects provides structure and focus, but also enables large-scale data collection. Therefore, this research methodology could be positioned to complement survey studies and narrative inquiry.

Effects of cognitive-person factors on career choice of tertiary students: the moderating role of chance events

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the effects of several individual elements vis-a-vis the environment that affects students’ choice of a career. The study assesses the effects of cognitive-person factors on the career decision-making of tertiary students and analyses how chance events moderate these relationships.Design/methodology/approachThe study used the survey research design to gather data from 302 final-year tertiary students from four (4) Faculties and sixteen (16) academic departments of a Technical University in Ghana. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaires and analysed using the partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).FindingsThe study reveals that students’ self-efficacy and outcome expectations are two cognitive-person factors that positively and significantly influence students’ career choices. However, chance events of tertiary students were found not to moderate the relationship between cognitive-person factors and students’ career choices.Practical implicationsUnderstanding how several cognitive-person factors influence the career choice of students through the lens of social career-cognitive theory could enable researchers to advance knowledge in the career choice process. Counselors and guidance coordinators need to motivate and encourage career/job exploration and development by identifying sources of psychosocial support available to students.Originality/valueThis study identifies the cognitive person factors that drive career decisions and provides one of the initial attempts to investigate how chance events moderate students’ cognitive-person career choice relationship.

Workshop with medical students on physicians\u2019 earning opportunities, workload and job satisfaction increases the attractiveness of working self-employed and working in general practice

BackgroundAmong the various factors identified as relevant for primary care career choice, financial considerations have been consistently shown to have an impact. In Germany, reliable and easily understandable information on physicians’ earning opportunities in self-employed settings is difficult to obtain for medical students, leading to substantial misperceptions that may negatively affect respective career considerations. This study investigated medical students’ evaluation of a 45-min evidence-based workshop on earning opportunities, workload and job satisfaction in different specialties and settings to examine its effect on the perceived attractiveness of working self-employed and working in general practice.MethodsThe workshop was implemented as part of a mandatory general practice clerkship in the fourth study year (of six). Post-hoc evaluations of all participants between October 2017 and September 2018 (one cohort) were analysed cross-sectionally including descriptive statistics, subgroup comparisons and qualitative analysis of free-text answers regarding students’ main insights.ResultsResponse rate was 98.1% (307/313). Participants were on average 25.0 years old, and 68.3% were women. Based on a ten-point scale ranging from 1 = ’no influence’ to 10 = ’very big influence’, 91.9% confirmed at least some (> = 2) and 57.3% a rather high (> = 5) influence of earning expectations on their career choice process. Regarding the workshop, 86.1% were overall satisfied, and 89.5% indicated they had gained new insights, primarily regarding earning opportunities in different specialties and work settings, and frequently regarding job satisfaction, workload and the structure of revenues and expenditures in a doctor’s office (according to qualitative analysis). In the opinion of 89.8% of students, the provided learning content should be part of the undergraduate curriculum. More than half of participants reported an increase regarding the attractiveness of working self-employed and working as a general practitioner, most frequently regarding earning opportunities, but also in general and in respect to job satisfaction, cost–benefit ratio and workload. This increase was significantly higher among students favouring or at least considering a general practice career.ConclusionsThe workshop and its content were appreciated by the students and showed clear potential to usefully complement undergraduate curricula aiming at increasing or reinforcing students’ interest in working self-employed and working in general practice.

Psychological aspects of professional orientation of students

This article researches the psychological aspects of the professional skills formation and knowledge in school-age children and the internal psychological characteristics of the teacher, the community and the adolescent who play a vital role in this process. The career choice process requires complex and far-sighted plans and the importance of developing the next generation. In addition to the system of measures for the training of teachers and special vocational training in the professional development of young people in the school is portrayed with specific explanations and experiences. Project systems for the organization of vocational education for students in grades 8-9-10 are analyzed.

Career orientations of medical students: A Q-methodology study.

In pursuing optimal health care, an adequate medical workforce is crucial. However, many countries are struggling with a misalignment of students' specialty preferences and societal needs regarding the future medical workforce. In order to bridge this gap, it is relevant to gain a better understanding of the medical career choice processes. We explored career orientations among medical students in the Netherlands and their implications for future career choices. We used Q-methodology, a hybrid qualitative-quantitative method, to explore career orientations of medical students. Medical students from two universities in the Netherlands, varying in year of progression of medical school, ranked 62 statements with regard to importance for their future career choice. Participants explained their ranking in an interview and completed a questionnaire regarding demographics. Using by-person factor analysis we identified groups of individuals with similar orientations. Twenty-four students participated in this study, resulting in three distinct orientations towards future careers: a first career orientation that highly values lifelong self-development; a second that values work-life balance, and a third that was more concerned with achievement and recognition of their work. Medical students' career orientations differed in the importance of challenge, work-life balance, and need for recognition. This knowledge can help to design interventions to shift career choices of medical students closer towards future needs in society. Offering career coaching to students that challenges them to explore and prioritise their values, needs and motivations, for example using the materials form this study as a tool, and stimulates them to consider specialties accordingly, could be a promising strategy for guiding students to more long-term satisfying careers.

Occupational reproduction and mobility in STEM – parental narratives of their child’s occupational choice

ABSTRACT Drawing on the narrative inquiry of 32 in-depth interviews with parents of sons who study in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields in tertiary education, we described the multi-dimensional picture of intergenerational mobility and reproduction derived from the Big Class, Microclass, and Cultural Mobility Models. We explored the process of STEM career choice for students with parents in STEM vs. non-STEM-related occupations from different SES. All parents encouraged their children to acquire higher education and conveyed their career expectations for high-status careers by emphasizing the importance of education, while almost totally avoiding recommendations for pursuingspecific occupations. We found that parental professional status is less decisive in explaining their son’s occupation than parental level of education. Parents with high SES with a STEM or non-STEM occupation encouraged Big Class reproduction for their sons, while working class parents desired Big Class mobility.

“What Can I Be When I Grow Up?”—The Influence of Own and Others’ Career Expectations on Adolescents’ Perception of Stress in Their Career Orientation Phase

The future that adolescents are growing up to live and work in becomes increasingly complex and vague, making job choice a moving target. Thus, adolescents develop and are confronted with a number of different options for what job they wish to take up and have to balance their own and their social environment’s job aspirations for them. Prior research has suggested including more dynamic approaches to understanding career choice and counseling. In this research, we therefore draw on the possible selves approach and aim at understanding how far imbalance between adolescents’ own and their social environments’ expectations for their vocational future will cause stress. In an online mixed-methods study, 163 adolescent participants, aged 14–22, reported their own and their parents’, teachers’, and friends’ emotions, future orientation, and perceived stress regarding the career choice. Results showed a variety of expectations for future careers held by participants and their social environment, as well as emotions regarding these expectations. Positive deactivating emotions (satisfaction and relief) negatively predicted adolescents’ stress and strain and the older and closer to final job choice participants were, the more they reported stress and strain. These findings suggest including adolescents’ social environment in the career choice process.

AİLƏ TİPLƏRİNİN YENİYETMƏLƏRİN PEŞƏ SEÇİMİNƏ PSİXOLOJİ TƏSİRİ

The role of the family in the career choice process is important. From the article "The psychological influence of family types on the career choice of adolescents" it follows that the process of choosing a career in adolescents who grow up in families of a democratic type is more successful than in other families. In such a family, a teenager always feels the support of the family when making his decision and confidently dominates his profession. In indifferent and overly gentle types of families, parents do not pay attention to their children and leave them alone with the problem. In an authoritarian, overprotective and cultivating family, parents do not give their children the right to speak, and the teenager is forced to choose the profession of their choice. Teens raised in an inconsistent family are often reluctant to make the right decisions when choosing a career. This creates some problems for them in the future. Key words: adolescent, age period, family, family types, career choice