Roles of Parental Influences, Personality and Career Decision-making Self-efficacy in Predicting Vocational Interests and Choice Goals among Hong Kong Secondary School Students

This study investigated the roles of parental influences, personality and gender variables in career-related self-concept development among secondary school students in Hong Kong. Two key career constructs, namely vocational interests and choice goals (i.e., aspirations and expectations), were included to assess the career-related self-concept. The incongruence between aspirations and expectations, in terms of interest types, occupational status and gender-typicality, was also estimated. The six major goals of this study include: (1) to determine to what extent the choice model of Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) is applicable to Hong Kong students, (2) to expand the SCCT by examining how individual (i.e., career decision-making self-efficacy, personality and gender-related variables) and contextual variables (i.e., parental influences) may account for the aspirations and expectations as well as the aspiration-expectation incongruence, (3) to identify the value of culture-relevant, relationship-oriented personality dimension beyond the culture-general dimensions in explaining interests and aspiration-expectation incongruence, (4) to estimate the specific roles of paternal and maternal influences, including parental socio-economic variables, collective contributions to career efficacy, perceived parental expectation and parental support, in the development of aspiration-expectation incongruence, (5) to explore the parents' perceived expectation on their child's academic achievement and career choices, as well as their efficacy in assisting their child's career decision-making, and (6) to investigate the differential effects of gender and gender-related variables (i.e., gender role traditional attitudes) on the development of aspiration-expectation incongruence among boys and girls. A total of 1382 secondary school students and a sub-sample of 114 parent-child dyads were used in this study. Results from structural equation modeling (SEM) indicated that the choice model of SCCT was applicable to Hong Kong students. In addition, both culture-general and culture-specific personality factors were useful in explaining vocational interests and self-efficacy in interest types in the SCCT models. In relation to students' aspirations, expectations and aspiration-expectation incongruence, these factors were directly associated with career decision-making self-efficacy, parental socio-economic variables and gender role attitudes. Perceived parental influences from mother (i.e., collective contributions to career efficacy, perceived parental expectation and parental support) were directly associated with students' career decision-making self-efficacy and indirectly related to outcomes of aspirations and expectations (via career decision-making self-efficacy). The effects of perceived parental influences from father on career variables were insignificant in general. Most personality factors were predictive of career decision-making self-efficacy. Furthermore, Interpersonal Relatedness was related to perceived parental influences from both parents. Gender differences in interests, self-efficacy, gender role attitudes, and gender-typicality in aspiration-expectation incongruence were observed. As demonstrated in the parent-child dyads, there was a good degree of concordance in interest types and gender-typicality between parents' expectation and students' choice goals. Parents' efficacy in assisting child's career decision-making was positively associated with students' perceived career-related parental support. On a theoretical level, this study expanded the current western-based theoretical frameworks by incorporating individual, contextual and cultural variables relevant to the Chinese culture into the existing career models. On an applied level, the findings would inform researchers, practitioners and educators about the career development of secondary school students in Hong Kong.;Keywords: vocational interests, career decision self-efficacy, adolescents, personality, parental influences.