A Study On The Career Development Attitude Among College Students

The number of those college graduates who can’t find a job is on the rise. Topromote employment is in the limelight of the whole society. This study consideredsocial cognitive career theory(SCCT) as a framework for identifying the mechanismthat effects people’s career development attitude. The results will help colleges inChina establish a localized theory of career education and conduct career intervention.The present study selects295undergraduates from three colleges of different levelsin Tianjin as participants to verify and modify the proactive personality inventory,career decision-making self-efficacy scale, career outcome expectation scale andcareer development attitude scale.Then we applied the foresaid four revised scalesfrom the previous research and one perceived social support scale revised by formerresearchers to examine another sample of777seniors undergraduates from threecolleges of different levels in Tianjin. The results are as follows:1. Revised the Proactive Personality Inventory, the Career Decision Self-EfficacyScale-Short Form, the Career Outcome Expectations Scale and the CareerDevelopment Attitude Scale have high reliability and validity, and they all meet thepsychometric criterion.2. When it comes to the following variables: proactive personality, perceived socialsupport, career decision-making self-efficacy, career outcome expectations and careerdevelopment attitude, college students differ significantly mainly related to parents’educational background and occupational status.3. Proactive personality and perceived social support were significantly associatedto career decision-making self-efficacy, career planning and career exploration. Careerdecision-making self-efficacy also was significantly associated to two indicators ofcareer development attitudes, namely career planning and career exploration. Afterfurther validation, resulte revealed that proactive personality, perceived social supportwere significantly associated to career development attitude, the effect was partiallymediated by career decision-making self-efficacy.4. Proactive personality and perceived social support were significantly associatedto career outcome expectations, career planning and career exploration. Careeroutcome expectations also was significantly associated to the said two indicators ofcareer development attitudes, namely career planning and career exploration. Afterfurther validation, resulte revealed that personality, perceived social support weresignificantly associated to career development attitude, the effect was partially mediated by career outcome expectations.5. When both career decision-making self-efficacy and career outcome expectationsexert an influence on career development attitude, career decision-makingself-efficacy has significantly main effect, while career outcome expectations has lessmain effect. After further validation, career outcome expectations exert a moderatoreffects on the relation between career decision-making self-efficacy and careerdevelopment attitude.6. In a comparison between experimental samples from some training classes andcontrol samples from an ordinary class, students significantly differ in careerdecision-making self-efficacy and career planning, and there is no significantdifference in career outcome expectations and career exploration. Neither is there anysignificant difference in the relation between career decision-making self-efficacy andcareer development attitude, and between career outcome expectations and careerdevelopment attitude.