Personality, career decision self-efficacy and career choices commitment process among post-secondary vocational education & training (VET) students in Hong Kong

Youths are the future leaders of society and they will strive for the betterment and advancement of the society. Career choices among young people have recently drawn attention. Recently, graduates have faced fierce competition in finding job in the job market due to the expansion of higher education. This situation is the same as in Hong Kong. However, most of the graduates have faced difficulties in preparing their career-searching activities and also lack confidence in finding their job in the market (He & Zhou, 2006). To understand what factors influence students’ career choices is becoming more important for most educators and student counselors in colleges and universities. They are required to design appropriate educational programme to cater the diverse needs and inclinations of the students. It is also critical and essential for student counselors to provide suitable support and career advisory services to assist students in finding out and planning for their career after graduation. The objective of this thesis is to investigate and examine the relationships between personality traits and the career commitment process of students studying vocational education and training (VET) programme in Hong Kong. It also examines the degree to which career decision self-efficacy (CDSE) mediates the relationship between these two constructs. Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) is the guiding conceptual framework (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994, 2000) of this study. It was assumed that personality traits were related to two dimensions of career choices commitment process, namely vocational exploration and commitment (VEC) and the tendency to foreclose (TTF) through the effect of career decision self-efficacy. This is a quantitative research for identifying data patterns or testing a pattern of relationships. This research study was conducted in the form of anonymous questionnaires to be distributed and collected in classes of undergraduate participants in three Hong Kong Institutions of Vocational Education. A total of 362 questionnaires were collected. Among these 362 questionnaires, 58 questionnaires were abandoned for incompleteness or same answers across all questions on the whole questionnaire. Therefore, 304 questionnaires were submitted for final data analysis. Data analysis comprises three stages. Firstly, an overview of the demographic profiles of the participants was conducted. Secondly, the examination of validity and reliability of data using Cronbach’s alpha testing, exploratory factor analysis and conformity factor analysis were also examined. Lastly, the four hypotheses were tested using SPSS version 23. In assessing the research questions, multiple regression analysis was employed in this study. The results indicated that CDSE has significant effect on VEC and TTF. All five Personality traits have significant effect on the CDSE. Extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism and openness to experience are significantly affected VEC, whereas only agreeableness and conscientiousness are significantly affected TTF. In relation to the mediation effect, extraversion shows a partially mediation effect on the relationship between personality and VEC while agreeableness and openness to experience have fully mediated on this. Moreover, all personality except neuroticism shows mediation between personality and TTF.