Career self-efficacy and career decision of African-American, Hispanic, and Anglo students enrolled in selected rural Texas high schools

摘要

The study was designed to obtain information that would be of value tosecondary school personnel who provide career counseling and guidance to high schoolstudents preparing for post-secondary education, training, and employment. The studyattempted to determine if African-American, Anglo, and Hispanic students variedsignificantly on characteristics that could potentially inhibit career decision-making.The characteristics investigated included career indecision and self-efficacy.Participants included 74 sophomore and senior students from three rural highschools in South Central Texas. Two research questions were investigated to determineif there were significant differences among Anglo, African-American, and Hispanicstudents on measures of career indecision and self-efficacy. A third research questionwas investigated to determine if significant differences existed on measures of careerindecision and self-efficacy by ethnicity, gender, and grade level, as well as for theinteraction of ethnicity, gender, and grade level. A supplementary analysis of the threeresearch questions was conducted including school as an independent variable. TheCareer Decision Scale and Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale were administered to theparticipants and the data were analyzed with ANOVA and MANOVA statistical tests.No significant differences were obtained for the three research questions. Whenthe school variable was included in the data analysis, significant main effects differenceswere found for grade level on self-efficacy and for school on career indecision. Thecombination of ethnic groups, genders, and grade levels indicated significant differencesfor the interaction of gender and grade level on self-efficacy and for the interaction ofethnicity and gender on self-efficacy. Middle to high levels of career indecision werereported by 90% of the seniors and 79% of all students in the study. The researcherrecommended that career interventions would be valuable to sophomores and seniors inhelping them prepare for post-secondary career choices.