An Exploration of Career Decidedness in Third Year First-generation Undergraduate Students at a Small Private Midwest College

Download or read book An Exploration of Career Decidedness in Third Year First-generation Undergraduate Students at a Small Private Midwest College written by Michelle A. Samuels-Jones and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This study examined the influences that affected third year first-generation (FG) students' career decidedness at a small private college in the Midwest. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 third year FG students in various majors. Transcripts were analyzed and considered in the context of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), the study's methodology and Lent, Brown, and Hackett's (1994) Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), the study's theoretical framework. SCCT similarly guided the structure and direction of the study's research questions. Employing these approaches, four major themes emerged as influencers that affected study participants' career decidedness, (1) first-generation identity as a point of pride, (2) the alignment of major, career, and vocational decisions, (3) future career as the pathway to upward mobility, and finally, (4) family-the greatest influencer in career decisions. Moreover, sub themes associated with 3 of the 4 primary themes emerged as follows, (1) first-generation pride similarly reflected participants' (1a) independence/working autonomously and (1b) serving as role models; (2) alignment of major, career, and vocation included participants' (2a) early clarity about career and major and (2b) their interest in helping professions; and finally, (3) family as the greatest influencer reflected (3a) college as a required, not optional pathway for participants and (3b) a personal family circumstance as influential to career decisions. Because parents and family were the greatest influencers overall, and actually surfaced in every theme, study findings, suggested the following recommendations for practice, (1) repositioning and establishing parents and family as a critical asset in the college/career exploration of their FG student, (2) identifying opportunities to better inform and equip parents and family with information to support FG students' career self-efficacy and active use of institutional resources, and, (3) the need to foster a robust outreach and support agenda for parents and families, where information/services to address their specific needs is widely available and accessible"--Author's abstract.