| As a core concept in the career construction theory,career adaptability denotes individual's capability of coping with developmental tasks and transitions in individual's occupation roles that alter social integration.For adolescents in China,career adaptability plays an important role in overcoming difficulties of adaptation in situations involving career transitions,such as dealing with entrance examinations,clarifying academic interests(arts or science oriented)in high school and applying for universities.Thus,it is vital to study on career adaptability of Chinese adolescents and its affecting factors to offer proper career guidance.Family and individual factors were proved to be the most important aspects in terms of affecting career adaptability.Researchers have found that parental careerrelated support has a positive effect on career adaptability;however,to our knowledge,few studies focus on the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying this relation.In the light of the career construction theory,individual's imagining of future occupation,which refers to one's future work self,is integral in the life career development.In addition,parent-child relationship with strong emotional connection is often seen as a moderator during one's career socialization process.The current study hypothesizes the mediating effect of future work self and the moderating role of closeness to parents between parental career-related support and career adaptability.To test these hypotheses,two sub-studies were conducted in this research.Study 1 was a cross-sectional study,in which 555 middle school students in Guangzhou City were recruited to participate.The Perceived Parental Career-related Support Scale,the Salience of Future Work Self Scale and the Career Adapt-ability Scale-China Form were adopted.All participants were tested in groups in the classroom settings.All the data was analyzed by SPSS 21.0.Study 2 was a longitudinal study,which 443 high school students at Grade 11 in Guangzhou City were recruited to complete a three-wave investigation.The Perceived Parental Career-related Support Scale and the Closeness to Parents Scale were only adopted at the first wave,and the Salience of Future Work Self Scale was only adopted in the second wave.The Career Adapt-ability Scale-China Form was adopted in all three waves.All the data was analyzed by SPSS 21.0 and Mplus 7.0.Results were partly consistent with our hypotheses:(1)There were significant differences among students' gender,grade and father's education background.More precisely,at gender,male students have higher level of career adaptability than female students,while at grade,the junior students get higher scores on career adaptability than the senior students.As for father's education background,the higher educational degree their father has,the higher level of career adaptability students would be at.(2)In both Study 1 and Study 2,the correlation analysis showed that parental career-related support was positively correlated with adolescents' career adaptability,salience of future work self and closeness to parents.Meanwhile,and the structural equation model revealed that parental career-related support significantly positively predicted career adaptability,and the salience of future work self partially mediated the relationship between parental career-related support and career adaptability,which was consistent in the longitudinal study.(3)In Study 2,the mediation of the salience of future work self in the second wave,between parental career-related support in the first wave and career adaptability in the third wave,was significantly moderated by the closeness to parents in the first wave.It implied that the mediation effect of the salience of future work self would be stronger if adolescence were closer to their parents.This study emphasizes the importance of parental career-related support,future work self and closeness to parents for career adaptability of Chinese adolescents.It contributes to the understanding of the mechanisms underlying the association between parental career-related support and career adaptability.At the same time,it tries to figure out the questions of how family and individual factors interact the adolescents' career adaptability,which have important implications for interventions aimed at improving career adaptability and offering proper career guidance.The limitations and future research direction were discussed at the end of this thesis. |
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