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1 – 10 of over 4000This study aims to examine variables and factors in vocational awareness and attitudes that affect the vocational aspiration of seafaring course students who are potential future…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine variables and factors in vocational awareness and attitudes that affect the vocational aspiration of seafaring course students who are potential future seafaring employees.
Design/methodology/approach
A literature review was conducted to identify factors that prompt students in seafaring courses to pursue seafaring careers, followed by a design of preliminary questionnaire questions to survey students’ perception on the conditions of seafaring careers (i.e. vocational awareness) and their intention to pursue a seafaring career (i.e., vocational aspiration). A total of 744 seafaring course students in four Taiwanese universities completed a questionnaire developed according to the previous studies. A structured equation modelling was conducted in this research including model validity, goodness of fit, model correction and mediation effects.
Findings
With a model consisting of four factors for vocational awareness, three factors for overall attitudes and vocational aspiration as a dependent variable, the results showed that factors of vocational awareness and students’ overall attitudes were significantly correlated, and the factors of overall attitudes exhibit strong mediation effects on vocational aspiration from vocational awareness. The results confirmed that the factors are important determinants for the vocational aspiration of students.
Originality/value
The findings of this study provide a comprehensive approach to understand students’ seafaring aspiration for the universities, governments and shipping companies. Seafaring policies and management are discussed from the research findings.
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This paper seeks to examine the roles of personality, vocational interests, academic achievement and some socio‐cultural factors in educational aspirations of secondary school…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to examine the roles of personality, vocational interests, academic achievement and some socio‐cultural factors in educational aspirations of secondary school adolescents in southwestern Nigeria.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey research design was adopted. The sample comprised 430 (males = 220, females = 210) secondary school students. Data personality, vocational interests, academic achievement, socio‐cultural factors and educational aspiration were obtained from the students. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to analyse the data.
Findings
The paper finds that specific personality, interest dimensions, academic achievement, socio‐economic status and demands from extended family were significantly related to the students' educational aspirations.
Research limitations/implications
The cross‐sectional correlational research design does not permit cause‐and‐effect inferences to be made. Use of a single‐item survey to assess educational aspirations may limit the results. Future research may add more items to assess educational aspiration.
Practical implications
The adolescents' personality, vocational interests, academic achievement and socio‐cultural factors should be identified and included in the career counselling process by counselling psychologists.
Originality/value
This research provides basis for the need to consider personality, interests and socio‐cultural factors in addition to cognitive attainment when explaining the adolescents' educational aspirations.
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KEITH F. PUNCH and BARRETT E. SHERIDAN
This paper examines the relationship between the reference group, influences of parents, teachers and peers, and the vocational aspirations of secondary school students, taking…
Abstract
This paper examines the relationship between the reference group, influences of parents, teachers and peers, and the vocational aspirations of secondary school students, taking account of differences in sex, social class, mental ability and home environment. It uses a sample of 704 student, of ages 16 and 17 years, drawn from four metropolitan senior high schools in Western Australia. Regression analysis indicates that approximately two‐thirds of the variance in boys' vocational aspirations, and half the variance in girls' vocational aspirations, is accounted for by a model which uses as predictors social class, mental ability, home environment, teacher and parent expectations and peer aspirations. Further analysis, using step‐wise techniques, shows that the influences of parents and teachers—in that order—are most important, as intervening variables, between the contextual variables of social class, mental ability and home environment, and the dependent variable of aspirations.
Sampson Lee Blair, Marilou C. Legazpi Blair and Anna B Madamba
Adolescents in their late teenage years are commonly faced with the difficulties of making important life decisions, such as whether to marry, whether to have children, and in…
Abstract
Adolescents in their late teenage years are commonly faced with the difficulties of making important life decisions, such as whether to marry, whether to have children, and in particular, what type of occupation they wish to pursue. Researchers have often posited that such decisions are best understood as the end product of socialization within the individual’s specific learning environment (see Bronfenbrenner, 1994). Aspirations, particularly occupational goals, do not occur within a vacuum; rather, they will be affected by a variety of factors, such as gender (e.g. Davey, 1993; Mau & Bikos, 2000), race/ethnicity (Arbona & Novy, 1991; Marjoribanks, 1985), and social class (Weinger, 2000). In particular, there exists a need to better recognize and understand the familial context in which these decisions are made (see Marjoribanks, 1997). Researchers have addressed many of the potential predictors of adolescents’ aspirations, yet typically have focused on only one set of factors. This study will attempt to provide a more comprehensive understanding of adolescents’ occupational aspirations by focusing on how they are affected by the familial context, and how such effects vary by race/ethnicity and gender.
The purpose of this paper is to outline a process to assist adult learners and researchers to capture, streamline and retrieve data for the analysis of content from various…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to outline a process to assist adult learners and researchers to capture, streamline and retrieve data for the analysis of content from various resources of information encountered in research.
Design/methodology/approach
The system is described, including a rationale for its benefit to qualitative researchers utilising multiple sources of data.
Findings
The system is designed mainly to assist the academic expedition of postgraduate students predominantly engaged in qualitative research. It covers theoretical aspects of adult learning principles combined with a systematic method for managing qualitative data.
Originality/value
Working from the assumption that adult learners are time‐poor and likely to be working full‐time, the paper discusses these learners’ need for an efficient method of recording and retrieving information and provides a straightforward, cataloguing process which the author developed when conducting postgraduate research.
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Gender-specific segregation of occupations has remained a typical characteristic of contemporary labour markets. From an individual perspective, (gender-)specific positioning in…
Abstract
Gender-specific segregation of occupations has remained a typical characteristic of contemporary labour markets. From an individual perspective, (gender-)specific positioning in the labour market is the result of longer-term developments over the life course; these may be influenced by specific macro-level conditions. For example, education and training systems may differ in the information they provide for individual educational and occupational decisions and in the biographical consequences of these decisions. This chapter analyses the potential relevance of education and training systems for gender-specific occupational expectations at a comparatively young age. The empirical analyses use data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2000, 2003 and 2006 and from the European Labour Force Survey (ELFS), comparing occupational gender segregation in early individual expectations and in the labour force across 22 European countries. In a multi-level analysis, expectations are related to both individual-level predictors and characteristics of education and training systems. The results show that anticipated choices of gender-specific occupations are loosely related to characteristics of education and training systems. In particular, the degree of vocational enrolment seems to enforce the level of segregation. However, these associations are group-specific and rather small. Education and training systems also tend to have different consequences for the expectations of young women and young men. Gender segregation already exists at early biographical stages, but it is often modified by later adaptation and the selective behaviour of institutions and employers.
This study examines the educational aspirations of immigrant students, who are descendants of eight different immigrant communities in Germany. First, the article shows that…
Abstract
This study examines the educational aspirations of immigrant students, who are descendants of eight different immigrant communities in Germany. First, the article shows that compared to native German students, the educational aspirations of students with migration origin vary substantially. Challenging previous narratives of immigrant optimism and information deficit, the article suggests that the students of Turkish origin develop a conscious appraisal of obtaining an academic high-school qualification (AHSQ), even if they realize they will not be able to receive one by the end of the high-school. The study also shows that the duration of their stay in Germany plays a significant role in attenuating the high educational aspirations of most immigrant communities. However, Turkish students constitute an exception to this finding as they maintain high idealistic aspirations from first- to third-generation. The return migrant students from the former Soviet Union are the only group who report high educational aspirations, when asked about both their idealistic and realistic aspirations. Finally, the findings indicate that the position of the particular immigrant groups within the German social status hierarchy is a strong determinant of the educational aspirations of immigrant students and their parents.
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Marion Lambert and Josiane Vero
The purpose of this paper is to assess the French reform of employees’ access to lifelong learning by addressing the issue of the relationship between corporate training policy…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess the French reform of employees’ access to lifelong learning by addressing the issue of the relationship between corporate training policy and employees’ capability to aspire for learning.
Design/methodology/approach
The investigation is based on the French linked employer‐employee survey DIFES1, which allows for responses from employees and human resource management to be analysed together. From a mixed ascending hierarchical clustering, the paper highlights the different ways in which the reform was applied within firms, and identifies capability‐friendly backgrounds. From bivariate probit models, it examines what factors affect employees’ capability to aspire.
Findings
First, the results identify 10.5 per cent of French firms as capability‐friendly. Second, it reveals that the capability to aspire is even more influenced by the environment as shaped by the corporate training policy than by professional pathways, occupational groups and other determinants, whilst training experiences themselves have no influence. Third, it raises the key issue of capability for voice as a matter of fundamental importance.
Research limitations/implications
Because of the cross‐sectional nature of the survey, the research is not able to address the temporal dynamics of the capability to aspire, how it evolves over time.
Practical implications
In contrast to political pronouncements attributing employees’ lack of aspiration to a personal inclination, the results show how corporate training policies may increase employees’ capability to aspire for training by making it a collective issue and provide insights to combat adaptive preferences.
Originality/value
The research provides, for the first time, an understanding of the relationship between corporate training strategies and the capability to aspire.
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The concept of “career” has become the dominant mode of thinking about the “lifespan” of one's working life in contemporary late capitalist society. The research literature on the…
Abstract
Purpose
The concept of “career” has become the dominant mode of thinking about the “lifespan” of one's working life in contemporary late capitalist society. The research literature on the concept of “vocation” and/or “calling” has grown in recent years, but has not yet received extensive treatment in the area of management career development. The purpose of this paper is to address this lacuna by outlining and describing the practice of vocational ideation (or considering one's work as calling, as opposed to a career or a job) in relation to its potential utilization in contemporary management and career development.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is essentially conceptual and is informed by an extensive review of research literature and theory which examines how the concept of the “calling” has been integrated with learning, educational and developmental activities.
Findings
The paper discusses the implications of the return to the concept of “vocation” in HR and Management Development theory and demonstrates why “calling” is a small but significant nuance which can change the way in which managers engage with career development practices. The literature on introducing the concept of vocational ideation to career development activities has grown in research years. However, the literature review found that this body of work tends to focus on pre-experience college students, which indicates that it has not often been considered as a viable avenue for management development practice or research.
Research limitations/implications
As the paper is purely conceptual, and most of the literature in this field tends to focus on pre-experience students, potential implications for practice and avenues for future research are outlined. One of the two main categories of research need which emerged from the conceptual work described in this paper in relation to vocationally oriented career ideation was concerned with developing an understanding the dynamics of introducing the concept of vocational calling into management career development interventions.
Practical implications
A template for “doing” for vocational ideation in a management career development or management development context was offered. This outline may be altered to assist management development practitioners to develop and augment vocational ideation initiatives as part of their work and professional practice.
Social implications
Another area of research need emerging from this work was concerned with understanding changing perspectives on non-economic aspects of work as a social practice, the impact of culture on how vocations are understood, and the relationship between spirituality and meaningfulness and career behavior. In summary there appears to be a need for more studies which demonstrate how changed understandings of the vocation is reflective of broader social change.
Originality/value
The concept of vocational ideation is original and does not exist as a concept or a practice in the professional or research literature. It is discussed here in the context of the growth of interest in spirituality and religion in workplaces. Specific attention is given to how it can be applied in contemporary workplaces and organizations as part of management development practices.
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An analysis of the relevant literature has demonstrated that many similarities exist between Pioneers (women working or hoping to work in male‐dominated occupations) and…
Abstract
An analysis of the relevant literature has demonstrated that many similarities exist between Pioneers (women working or hoping to work in male‐dominated occupations) and Traditionals (women working in or hoping to work in female‐dominated occupations). Clearly background, personality, motivation and attitudes alone are relatively poor predictors of preference for entry into traditionally male occupations. Therefore the typical Pioneer, which earlier research has attempted to identify, does not exist. The ways in which women's personal characteristics influence occupational choice and work entry should be placed within a wider context to include the external, structural and situational factors which inhibit and facilitate women's entry into male‐dominated occupations. A more qualitative approach is needed rather than the standard questionnaire methods.
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