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Adolescents’ career aspirations and expectations : the influence of gender, grade, and locus of control

University of British Columbia

This study explored the agreement in occupational field between adolescents' career aspirations and career expectations and the influence of gender, grade, and locus of control on this agreement. In addition, the reasons for occupational choice with regard to career aspiration and career expectation were examined. An examination of the literature revealed little current research on the relationship between career aspirations and expectations when examined together or on the various factors which influence adolescent career choice. The literature does indicate that, when considering specific factors, career choice was positively related to grade and gender. However, despite the importance of psychological constructs in career choice, relatively little research on the relationship between locus of control and career choice has been published to date. In this study, it was hypothesized that there would be a difference between the field of subjects' ideal occupational choices and real occupational choices regardless of gender, grade, or locus of control, and that there would be a difference in the subjects' reasons for ideal occupational choices and real occupational choices regardless of gender, grade, or locus of control. The study was conducted with 500 randomly selected grade eight to twelve students attending a secondary school chosen by the Superintendent of the cooperating school district in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. All the subjects, except those in grade nine, were taking some form of a career education program. The results of the study supported the research hypotheses and indicated that there was little agreement in occupational field between career aspiration and expectation, and that there was no grade, gender, or locus of control influence. Similarly, there was no differences between the reasons for ideal and real occupational choices. It was found, however, that reasons for occupational choice varied across grades. The results of the study have implications for both counsellor and career guidance programs at the secondary school level.

Text

2010-04-17

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/23771

Counselling Psychology

University of British Columbia

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