The work is focused on desision-making about the next university studies and future profession of the students at grammar schools and maps the situation in our country and the situation in foreign countries, especially Europen, it is focused on comparison of posibilities of studies in the Czech Republic and in Europe.. The research took place in the time period of November - October 2018 in Pilsen region. The main objective of the exploration was to map the situation of the desision-making about future profession of the students of grammar schools. The partial objectives were to map the reasons that influence the most the desision-making about future profession, to discover the differences between students of four-year and more-year form of the schools and what is the proportion of the students who change their high school during their studies at grammar school and to find the proportion of the students who want to continue their stuies at university. The paper analyses the opinions of the respondents - students of the graduation grades of two grammar schools and the data gived by the leaders of these schools. Nine schools (of fifteen in Pilsen region) were addressed and two took the part of the research (22,22 %). It was found out that the strongest motivations to choose the profession are...

<p>Three research studies were conducted to explore and explain the Colombian rural youth decision-making process regarding migration, university education and careers. The first study was a review of literature about Latin American rural youth. Forty-five peer-review articles that conducted in 13 Latin American countries, including Colombia, during the last 20 years were reviewed and analyzed. After conducting a systematic review, four main approaches of research were identified: (a) rural youth migration, (b) education and/or communication programs (e.g., rural extension), (c) rural youth expectations or futures perspectives, and (d) characterization of rural youth. Regarding methods, quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method analyses were performed in these studies. Finally, main findings suggested that the rural context in these developing countries imposes socio-economic barriers for rural youth academic or professional development. Some authors also highlighted the importance of education or extension programs developed by local governments to empower Latin American rural youth. </p> <p>The second study was a quantitative analysis that explored factors concerning the Colombian rural youth migration expectation using a multi-level approach (Level 1 = individual variables; Level 2 = family variables). Data came from 945 Colombian rural youth that responded to a national survey in 2016. Results showed that age, gender, and school grade were positively correlated to the migration expectation. Moreover, the family socioeconomic status was negatively correlated to the outcome. Family level variables explained 9% of the total migration expectation. </p> <p>The third study explored and explained the Colombian rural youth perceptions about barriers they experienced during their career decision-making. This study used a convergent parallel mixed-method design. Participants of the quantitative phase were 155 Colombian youth that responded to a survey. On the other hand, the qualitative phase was made-up by five female and five male. These 10 people participated in an interview and wrote a short essay. All participants were members of the Colombian Rural Youth Network. Results showed that the career decision-making process for this Colombian occurred in a marginalized context, in which they did not have the same resources and/or tools to compete for university careers access with their urban peers. </p> <p>As general conclusion of this dissertation, the Colombian rural context imposes restrictions for rural youth to pursue their career aspirations, which results in a push factor for youth to migrate to urban areas for career opportunities.</p>

This study paralleled Smallman's (1993) analysis of college athletes at an NCAA Division I school, which found significant differences between athletes and nonathletes in readiness to make career decisions. The present study measured career decision-making skills using The Career Development Inventory. In addition, the present study examined the salience of roles (i.e., student, worker, citizen, family member, and leasurite) as measured by The Salience Inventory.

Career development and career planning are important for the transition of college students to the workforce. College students with disabilities encounter more challenges regardless of the education and career processes. These career development challenges include societal attitudes toward persons with disabilities, inaccessible accommodations, lack of social support, and ambivalent identities. These attributions may cause college students with disabilities to have lower career self-efficacy and outcome expectations, which in turn may lessen one’s motivation to engage in academia and career development (Gibbons, Justina, Cihak, Wright, & Mynatt, 2015). Hence, this study examined the influences of disability identity, ethnic identity, perceptions of career barriers, and social supports in career decision self-efficacy and outcome expectations of college students with disabilities. This study utilized a cross-sectional survey design and included a valid sample of 312 college students with disabilities at two universities, one Midwestern and one Southeastern. The most important predictor was social support, which uniquely explained 8.5% of the variation in career decision self-efficacy, β = .327, t(302) = 5.730, p < .001, controlling for other variables in the same regression model. The other significant predictors were ethnicity identity (β = .232, t(302) = 4.162, p < .001), disability identity (β = .158, t(302) = 2.897, p = .004), and male gender (β = -.098, t(302) = -1.994, p = .047). Accounting for 57.2% of the variance, career outcome expectation was explained by all seven predictor variables, disability identity, ethnicity identity, social support, perceived career barriers, career self-efficacy, ethnicity and gender. The most important predictor was career decision self-efficacy which uniquely explained 24.1% of the variation in career outcome expectation, β = .595, t(302) = 13.054, p < .001, controlling for other variables in the same regression model. The other significant predictors were ethnicity identity (β = .167, t(302) = 3.721, p < .001), and perceived career barriers (β = -.104, t(302) = -2.411, p = .017), controlling for other variables respectively. A significant relationship was found between career decision self-efficacy, ethnicity identity, and perceived career barriers with career outcome expectation of college students with disabilities. Moreover, Hispanic college students with disabilities reported positive ethnicity identity compared to European students. African and Asian college students with disabilities perceived more career barriers than their European counterparts. Finally, college students with acquired disabilities reported higher career outcome expectations than those with congenital disabilities. The results of this study provide faculty, administrators, disability support specialists, and career counselors in postsecondary institutions with the ability to recognize the needs and expectations of college students with disabilities. Also, constructing effective career services, fostering multicultural competencies, and promoting an inclusive campus climate would benefit college students with disabilities’ academic retention and career transitions to competitive employment.

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This study conceptualizes the married woman's experience of relocation as a passage through a moving 'career'. This passage follows a prescribed, regularized sequence of stages involving decision-making, planning, relocation, and settling-in. Such a conceptualization allows the examination of geographic mobility as a process occurring over time and within the context of other life events; and of the role of the previous environment in shaping the definition of, and response to, the new social world. The data for this study were collected through interviews with 123 married women who moved with their spouses into the metropolitan area of Hamilton and Burlington, Ontario. All had moved within Canada, but not less than 35 miles; had not lived in the target area within the preceding five years; and were interviewed within a year of their move. They were contacted through the cooperation of national van lines agents, a federal government mobility programme, and a municipal department of social services. A focus of the research is on the wife's role in and response to her moving career. Her control over that career varies considerably with each stage. Women have little control over the initiation of the passage during the decision-making stage, but have substantial control over what they consider to be the 'mundane' tasks which comprise the planning and relocation stages. During the settling-in stage, however, most women play the key role in establishing the home and making the move successful for their families. Thus many women feel responsible for the success of a moving career which they had little role in initiating. This research also addresses the question of whether, why, and in what ways women perceive their experience of relocation as different from that of their spouse. Most wives felt that moving was more difficult for them than for their husbands. The major differentiating factor was not the husband's occupational career per se, but rather the continuity of that career through working for the same employer or in a related field. Few women in this study experienced such occupational continuity. The husband's experience of relocation not only differed from but also complicated that of his wife. This was most apparent in his leaving for the new community weeks or months before the wife and children. Although rarely examined by migration researchers, this sequencing of the moving career is an important aspect of wives' experiences of relocation. Many women found this period of separation from the spouse the most difficult and disruptive stage of the moving career. Family life cycle stage also emerged as an important factor distinguishing wives' experiences of geographic mobility. Women who became mothers or whose children left the nuclear family at the time of the move found themselves in competing status passages. Relocation complicated the experiences of those who became mothers; for those who launched children from the home, the moving career both initiated and complicated passage through this family life cycle stage. Migration researchers fundamentally disagree on whether the experience of relocation has primarily beneficial or disruptive consequences for people. In the short term, most women found moving to be highly disruptive of routine, taken-for-granted reality, and social life. There was no support for the proposition that as familiarity with the role of mover increases, women learn techniques for easing the disruptiveness of the passage. While the wives could generalize the passage so that the physical aspects of relocation became easier, the experience of social and emotional disruption actually increased with repeated relocation. Nevertheless, most women felt that they had personally benefitted from geographic mobility, by becoming more independent, confident, and assertive. The long term consequences of relocation are more uncertain, however. Many women suffered a sense of rootlessness and lacked a concept of a life-plan, of where and who they would be when the moves were over. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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The career development and career decision-making needs of African-American males have generated much inquiry. Two year colleges currently serve as the predominant point of entry for many African-American male students seeking baccalaureate degrees. However, the transition to and eventual success at the four-year institution is often met with challenges. The inability to choose a major that may lead to a desired career has the potential to serve as a barrier for some students. From the lens of social cognitive career theory, this qualitative study was conducted to examine the experiences of undecided, African-American male transfer students at a large, four-year metropolitan university. Upon analyzing data from the interviews, themes were developed according to three research questions. Themes that offered insight into major selection process included: (a) choosing a major that offered potential job stability/security, (b) experiences related to academic ability, and (c) experiences with gender relative to career decision-making. Participation in the Direct Connect program was the minor theme found related to experiences encountered in the transfer process that influence major and/or career development. Themes related to the development of career decision-making self-efficacy included: (a) choosing careers believed to be consistent with one’s person, (b) indecision while at the community college, (c) engagement in practical experiences, (d) solving problems, (e) meeting with advisors and counselors at the community college, and (e) involvement in extracurricular activities

<p>This dissertation consisted of a mixed-methods investigation into expectations about what “counts” as an engineering career and how individuals make decisions about their futures. Presented as a set of three independent but closely related studies, I examined the ways that engineering students, alumni, and educators think and talk about careers and career decision-making. This work focused not only on the content of participants’ experiences, but also the extent to which their claims may reflect or inform commonly held beliefs about what is normal, expected, or assumed. Such a focus adds an additional layer to ongoing conversations about how we can support students in their future endeavors. </p> <p><br></p> <p>The participants were students, alumni, or educators from four engineering programs (i.e., biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, and mechanical engineering) at a single institution in the United States. The first study investigated the experiences of engineering undergraduate students with varying career plans at the cusp of the college-to-career transition. The fourteen students balanced an expectation of passion and fulfillment against an uncertainty of how to choose from their many and wide-ranging career options. I analyzed participants’ claims through discourse analysis and leveraged the concept of transformative decisions to highlight the difficulty of applying a rational decision-making framework to engineering students’ career decisions.</p> <p><br></p> <p>To complement the student perspective, I also investigated the perspectives of engineering alumni and educators. In the second study, I collected survey data from engineering undergraduate degree holders (n = 1,979) who earned their degree between 1970 and 2019. Using write-in data, I mapped alumni’s career pathways for their first four positions after graduation (i.e., their early career pathways). While some findings were unsurprising (e.g., the recent Millennial generation has shorter position durations compared to previous generations), the findings also highlight that the pathways of engineering degree holders have been generally consistent across time. Alumni have always moved in and out of roles that have “engineer” in the job title. In the survey, the alumni also named up to three educators at the institution that had been influential on their career pathways; those educators were targeted in the third study to better understand how to support students. I interviewed eleven influential educators about the strategies they used to help students make career decisions, which ranged from presenting themselves as approach to helping students figure out their interests. Beyond the pragmatic recommendations, the final study also highlights how the advice educators give do not always reflect their own experiences, underscoring why it is important to be aware of the expectations embedded in the messages we tell students.</p>

Information Technology (IT) jobs are in demand in the United States and rural Appalachian communities are attracting IT businesses. The need to fill IT jobs creates a workforce opportunity for these communities where students have limited access to academic and career resources. The Upward Bound and Talent Search programs respond to the academic and career needs of disadvantaged students and aim to educate students about high skills jobs but little is known about interest in IT careers among middle and high school students in rural Appalachia. This study validates models of IT career interest and parental support of IT careers in girls and boys enrolled in Upward Bound or Talent Search in rural communities in Virginia using the theoretical framework of self-authorship. The theory of self-authorship explores the development of meaning-making in individuals and offers a context-specific way to study interest in IT careers. Results indicate interest in IT careers but the path to IT career interest is different among girls and boys. Girls are relying on others for career advice more often than boys and there is direct association between the information sources and interest in IT careers. Parental support is important in IT career interest for both girls and boys. Other important variables indicating an interest in IT careers are computer use and positive attitudes toward IT workers. Receiving information from sources such as parents, teachers, counselors, and friends is especially important to girls. Findings from this study can be used to inform practices and policies for Upward Bound and Talent Search. / Ph. D.