Factors affecting career choice and career expectations of the vocational school students and graduates: The mediating role of self-efficacy

The main purpose of this study is to portray school-to-work transition period of vocational school students and graduates. In line with this purpose, socio-cognitive career theory was preferred since it can conceptualize the context of career choice in a balanced way. The impacts of individual, structural and institutional-relational factors, and individualism and collectivism, as cultural factors, affecting career choice process on outcome expectations of students were examined. Moreover, the mediating role of career decision-making self-efficacy between dependent and independent variables was investigated. The population of the study consists of students of Mehmet Akif Ersoy University Social Sciences Vocational School in 2016-2017 academic year and ex-students graduated in 2016. It was found that structural and institutional-relational factors are not significant predictors of self-efficacy and outcome expectations whereas individual factors, collectivism and individualism significantly predict those variables. In addition, self-efficacy mediates the relationship between outcome expectations and predictor variables. The findings of the study are expected to model the initial stages of the career paths of the vocational school students, and thus to get the practitioners having awareness about which intervention strategies should be used to facilitate their school-to-work transition.