There have been few studies on topic difficulty in the public administration curriculum of African universities. This is further problematized by non-existent literature on the relationships between gender, future career interest and country of study on student difficulty in the study of public administration. This is a gap in the public…

This study investigated Turkish school students' attitudes towards STEM disciplines and careers and explored determinants of students' STEM career goals. In total, 117 lower secondary school students (aged 11 to 14) completed the "STEM Semantic Survey" including an open-ended question about their career intention after high school and…

In a longitudinal study of bakers' apprentices, reluctant or ambivalent entrants to the work of baking, discovered an affinity for their work through processes of belonging to a workplace, becoming and being bakers. Through extensive, thorough and at times demanding engagement with bakers' work and the forging of strong personal relationships with…

Introduction: In John Holland's theory of vocational personalities and work environments, the hexagonal model organizes personal and occupational data, and serves to define the degree of consistency in a personality or job environment configuration, as well as the degree of congruence between a person and their environment. The objective of the…

Secondary school students in the Netherlands already face future-oriented decisions about their educational careers, which are expected to be informed by their interests in specific vocations or occupations. However, vocational interest assessment tools generally do not account for the possibility that students are interested in multiple…

Our purpose in this paper is to shed light on the intricacies of designing and enacting curricular innovations aiming to enhance students' interest in science and their understandings of STEM careers. We present the design and describe the implementation of a set of STEM career-oriented curriculum materials referred to as career-based scenarios. A…

This dissertation sought to use PhotoVoice, an arts-based research method, as a way for pre-college and college students to decide on an area of study and career path. This study called upon the aid of student-participants to carry out the research and academic professionals to help in examining the research. Using a framework set in Strength…

This paper analyses the interest content of all 1016 Australian occupations. These were classified according to vocational interests (i.e. outdoor, practical, scientific, creative, business, office, people contact, health, community, and computing), educational qualifications, and skill level, as well as in terms of the six Holland (RIASEC) types.…

Among the approaches to the study of career interests, the person-centered profile approach (i.e., studying the career interest profiles of individuals), rather than the traditional construct-centered approach, has gained more attention in recent years. In our research, we intend to advance our understanding of career interests with the…

The goal of our ongoing research is to identify strengths and weaknesses of high school level science fair and improvements that can help science educators make science fair a more effective, inclusive and equitable learning experience. In this paper, we confirm and extend our previous findings in several important ways. We added new questions to…

A shortage of accounting Ph.D.s exists in academia. In this study, we explore accounting masters students' perceptions of Ph.D. study and academic careers. We administered a survey before and after discussing academia during class. We find that students are uninformed about Ph.D. programs and academic careers, but their understanding improves…

Increasing diversity in engineering, which is a goal of the profession, education and government, starts with increasing the diversity of those choosing to study the discipline. This paper focuses on girls' engagement in engineering. Data is from a survey of girls attending a university open day and interviews with practising female engineers. The…

The present study examined the role of social class in the career decision-making of undergraduate students attending a private university. Grounded theory was used to describe the process of social class and undergraduates' career interests and plans. Interviews with undergraduate students (N = 21) resulted in four categories and 13 axial codes.…

A named professional with responsibility for overseeing and coordinating the educational inclusion of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities has become an important school role in many countries. In England, the SENCO (special educational needs coordinator) became a mandatory role in 1994, and associated mandatory training was…

The present study attempted to identify the psychological processes associated with the career goals of Taiwanese college athletes. In order to identify the psychological processes potentially associated with career goals, the study drew upon social cognitive career theory (SCCT). The results supported SCCT indicating that career decision-making…