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Career decision-making and the relationship between congruence and academic performance

M.A. / With recent socio-political changes in South Africa, it was considered important to review the career expectations of black South African youth, given the reported poor state of career guidance within certain schools. The literature review revealed that South African youth, particularly those from an Afrocentric culture, also tend to be unrealistic in their perceptions of job availability once they left school, with low self and occupational knowledge. Compromise was included as an important factor when considering the perception of job accessibility and the possibility of having to adjust aspirations to meet the realities of the world of work. The aim of this study, therefore, was to assess the occupational choices made by the grade 10 and 12 pupils at RAUCALL high school. The study attempted to determine the degree of congruence of the pupils' occupational choices in comparison to their occupational expectations and how this congruence correlates with academic performance. The results of the correlational analysis indicated that there was no statistically significant relationship between congruence and academic performance. From the findings of this research it was possible to conclude that students with low vocational identity may not experience any more academic difficulty than do students with high vocational identity. An additional finding was that John Holland's concept of congruence, Il` • his theory as a whole, needs to be validated to incorporate the South African context with its various cultures and language groups. The knowledge of self for black South African adolescents must be placed within the framework of a black identity if vocational guidance programmes are to be seen as meaningful and relevant.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:10048
Date11 September 2012
CreatorsThomas, Colin Whitley
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

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