A multi-theoretical framework to better understand the college major choice in arts and design

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to identify career development theories that explain the intention to choose college majors in arts and design, to integrate the identified theories and to examine the relationships between determinants of the integrated model. In addition, this study attempts to identify the characteristics of the prospective arts and design students.

Design/methodology/approach

The literature review resulted in a multitheoretical framework named as PERISCOPE (Personality of Holland's RIASEC in Social Cognitive and Planned Behavior Theories) to reflect the theories it consisted of. This study collected data from Year 12 students in Surabaya (n = 163) and used PLS-SEM technique to assess the measurement model and the structural model of such framework.

Findings

The results revealed that the integrated model explains 57.8 percent of the variance of the intention to pursue arts and design majors. This paper hence improves the predictive ability of an earlier model by adding a further theory. In addition, this study identified characteristics of the prospective students and concluded that students with artistic personality will have better self-efficacy, which sequentially have perception that pursuing arts and design majors will not be challenging, thus increases their intention to pursue such majors.

Originality/value

This study demonstrated that PERISCOPE framework is better in terms of predictive power in understanding the college major choice in arts and design. As a result, this study adds to the current body of knowledge in the field of college major choice, which was found to be lacking.

Citation

Sudhana, P., Ameen, A. and Isaac, O. (2020), "A multi-theoretical framework to better understand the college major choice in arts and design", Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, Vol. 12 No. 5, pp. 1009-1023. https://doi.org/10.1108/JARHE-11-2019-0277