Career consciousness among Japanese female students: Relationships between vocational motivation and career exploration

Abstract

This questionnaire study investigated career consciousness among 348 Japanese female freshman and sophomore college students. Variables included career consciousness (belief in the idea of a best-fit vocation, passivity, and giving priority to personal interests), vocational motives (self-improvement, interpersonal, status), as well as career decision-making self-efficacy (self-appraisal, gathering occupational information) and career exploration (self and environmental exploration). The results of causal analyses showed that the belief in the idea of a best-fit vocation and passivity had effects on all three vocational motives, but giving priority to personal interests had an effect only on motivation for self-improvement. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) models were constructed with career exploration as dependent variables, career consciousness as fixed factors, and career decision-making self-efficacy as covariates. The results of the analyses showed that students who had high career decision-making self-efficacy engaged in both self exploration and environmental exploration activities with a higher frequency. Students with a greater passive tendency toward their career engaged in both self and environmental exploration with a lower frequency. Belief in the idea of a best-fit vocation was associated only with differences in frequency of self exploration. Giving priority to personal interests did not produce differences in career exploration activities.