Mediating Effect of Career Decision Self-Efficacy on the Relationship Between Parental Support and Indecision in Taiwan

Abstract

This study used a hierarchical regression model to investigate the mediating effect of career decision self-efficacy on the relationship between parental support and career indecision and indecisiveness. The participants of this study were 633 university students in Taiwan. The results revealed that only accurate self-appraisal significantly mediated the relationship between parental emotional support and career indecision regarding unreliable information. The career decision self-efficacy did not mediate the relationship between parental support and career indecision and indecisiveness in most cases.

Keywords

parental support career indecision indecisiveness career decision self-efficacy

Savickas (2007) maintained that environmental context and cultural uniqueness should be considered in career-related research and theory construction. Thus, before probing into career issues in Taiwan, it is imperative to understand that in terms of social norms, Taiwan is a Chinese collectivist culture, where Taiwanese parents are deeply concerned about their children’s career development and heavily involved in their career choices. There have not been studies relating to parental support on career decisions targeted at Taiwanese subjects; hence, this study attempts to be the first to shed light on the mediating effects of parental support on their children’s career indecision.

Leong and Barak (2005) believed that even though universality exists in career development among various ethnic groups, the disparities between ethnic Caucasians and non-Caucasians should still be factored in. The East–West difference in cultural collectivism and individualism and its effects on career is worth exploring. Tang, Fouad, and Smith (1999) conducted a study on the predictors of career choice by Asian American college students and discovered that the variable “family involvement” had a direct effect on the career choices of students in an immigrant family; meanwhile, no significant correlation was observed between the Asian American students’ interest and career choice, evidencing a marked difference than their American counterparts raised under a more individualistic culture. Therefore, compared to the influence of family of Western individualist culture, the influence of family on career decision-making in Chinese collectivist cultures is worthy of further exploration.

Difference Between Career Indecision and Indecisiveness

Numerous empirical studies have categorized the psychological characteristics and causes of career indecision into career indecision and indecisiveness. Career indecision, a normative phenomenon in career development, is the temporary indecision to pursue a career (Osipow, 1999), whereas indecisiveness is the manifestation of a person’s negative psychological characteristics (Guay, Ratelle, Senécal, Larose, & Deschênes, 2006). Some scholars believe indecisiveness is linked to emotional and behavioral characteristics of trait neuroticism (Brown et al., 2012); while others have indicated that people who are indecisive due to anxiety exhibit indecisiveness across all decision situations (Germeijs & De Boeck, 2012; Osipow, 1999). Santos and Ferreira (2012) reported that career indecision was caused by a lack of career information, whereas indecisiveness was attributed to personal emotional factors.

Distinguishing career indecision from indecisiveness is significant for clinical work. Santos and Ferreira (2012) maintained that people who experience career indecision or indecisiveness should be provided with distinct counseling strategies, such as short-term counseling intervention to facilitate self-exploration and career decision-making for career indecision. Indecisive people require long-term counseling because they experience complex problems related to personal adaptation and have ineffective coping behaviors.

Downing and Nauta (2010) verified that parent–child attachment (anxious or avoidant) directly and indirectly (through identity confusion) predicted personal–emotional career indecision. However, the influence of parent–child attachment on informational indecision was nonsignificant. Consequently, Western empirical studies have revealed the multidimensionality of indecision and verified the effects of parent–child attachment on personality and emotional indecisiveness, but this type of attachment does not affect career indecision caused by a lack of information.

Related Theory and Empirical Research on Parental Support and Career Indecision

Social constructionist perspective emphasizes the importance of environmental context to knowledge generation and maintains that knowledge is constructed through relational interaction rather than objective observation (Blustein, Schultheiss, & Flum, 2004). Therefore, a shift of focus from individuals to the meanings behind interactive relationships underlines the importance of relationships in career development. The relational career approach is inspired by the social constructionist interpretation of relationships, which focuses on the association between the quality of an interpersonal interaction and career development. The relational career approach indicates that significant others have a critical effect on an individual’s career exploration and goal setting (Schultheiss, 2003). In particular, empirical studies have indicated that parental support is the most critical form of relational support affecting the career development of individuals (Fisher & Griggs, 1995; Nauta & Kokaly, 2001; Schultheiss, Kress, Manzi, & Glasscock, 2001).

Regarding the effect of parental support on the career decision and indecision of children, Guerra and Braungart-Rieker (1999), Vondrack, Lerner, and Schulenberg (1986), and Whiston and Keller (2004) have indicated that supportive relationships provide a sense of security for people making goal-oriented decisions. Attachment theory posits that when adolescents explore their careers and exercise autonomy and independence, the sense of security provided by their parents acts as emotional support and encouragement, thereby enabling adolescents to progress. Blustein (2011) maintained that in the decision and indecision processes for career goals and transitions to a new career phase, the emotional and instrumental support that people receive from supportive relationships is crucial.

In traditional Chinese culture, close relationships and family ethics are emphasized; therefore, the effect of parental support on the career decision and indecision of children warrants investigation. However, the aforementioned empirical studies have solely investigated Western families, and examinations on Chinese families are lacking. Such was the motivation of this study.

Effects of Parental Support on Career Decision Self-Efficacy and Career Decision Self-Efficacy on Career Indecision

Career decision self-efficacy is the level of confidence an individual has in their ability to solve future career problems. Hacket and Betz (1981) adopted this concept from the self-efficacy construct in social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) and applied it to career decision-making and development. Bandura (1977) reported that the four factors affecting self-efficacy are performance accomplishment, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and emotional arousal factors. Parental support involves using verbal persuasion and emotional arousal factors to encourage, affirm, and emotionally comfort children, thereby strengthening their career decision self-efficacy. Ferry, Fouad, and Smith (2000) maintained that parental encouragement, support, and advice are the family factors that effectively predict self-efficacy through learning experience instead of negative indicators such as expectation and control. Additionally, Fouad et al. (2010) reported that informational support from parents is the only support dimension that is significantly correlated with the various factors of career decision self-efficacy, yielding a .14 to .16 correlation coefficient.

Previous empirical studies have affirmed the considerable effect of career decision self-efficacy on indecision. Betz and Voyten (1997) reported that career decision self-efficacy accounted for 19% and 28% of the variance in indecision among female university students and their male counterparts, respectively. Integrating decades of empirical studies on career decision self-efficacy, Betz and Luzzo (1996) found that career decision self-efficacy was not as correlated with career commitment, vocational identity, and career maturity as it was with career indecision. Moreover, the correlation with career indecision achieved greater consistency and significance than the correlation with career commitment, vocational identity, and career maturity.

The Mediating Effect of Career Decision Self-Efficacy

Career decision self-efficacy is a core concept of social cognitive career theory (SCCT). Lent et al. (2001) proposed SCCT and stressed the importance of clarifying the effect of environmental context on decisions and indecisions. In empirical studies investigating the decisiveness and indecisiveness of university students, Lent et al. (2001), Lent et al. (2003), and Lent et al. (2005) have reported that all environmental contexts affect decisions and indecisions indirectly through self-efficacy. The environmental context of background support in SCCT included feelings of personal security through emotional, resource, and informational support from parents.

In applying SCCT to university students, Ferry et al. (2000) found that mathematical self-efficacy did mediate the relationship between parental support and career goals related to selecting mathematical courses. Guay, Senécal, Gauthier, and Fernet (2003) explored the parental autonomous support received by university students and maintained that career decision self-efficacy mediated the relationship between parental autonomous support and career indecision. Using a longitudinal approach, Restubog, Florentino, and Garcia (2010) investigated university nursing students in the Philippines and indicated that parental support effectively predicted the career self-efficacy of the students 6 months into the future. In addition, career self-efficacy facilitated the prediction of career decisions, which verified the mediating effect of career self-efficacy. Accordingly, the present study recruited Taiwanese university students who grew up in a Chinese collectivist culture to investigate the mediating effect of career decision self-efficacy on the relationship between parental support and both career indecision and indecisiveness.

Method

Participants

A total of 633 students from nine universities in Taiwan participated in this study. Regarding the gender of the participants, 51.8% of the participants were male, 47.7% were female, and 0.5% were transgender. Regarding the grades of the participants, 17.2% were first-year students, 36.7% were second-year students, 19.5% were third-year students, and 26.5% (including super seniors: 2.8%) were fourth-year students. As for their fields of study, 38.31% majored in science and engineering, 22.06% in business and management, 13.87% in language and humanities, 10.04% in education, 9.51% in communications, design, and tourism, with the remaining 6.21% majored in other fields of study, such as biomedicine or law. Response showed that 88.5% of participants had both parents involved in their career decisions, while 11.5% (e.g., students in single-parent families) had only one parent involved.

Measures

Five research instruments were employed in this study: (1) personal background variables, including demographic information (e.g., year of study, department, and gender), (2) a scale for measuring parental support for university students, (3) the Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale–Short Form (CDSE-SF), (4) the Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire–Revised (CDDQ-R), and (5) the Emotional and Personality Career Difficulties (EPCD) Scale. The three scales, CDSE-SF, CDDQ-R, and EPCD, used in this study were first translated into Chinese and were subjected to inspection by two professional Chinese–English translators to examine its appropriateness; they were asked to take cultural context into account when proofreading. Afterward, two career experts were invited to confirm the content validity of the translated scales.

Scale of Parental Support for University Students

Based on the theoretical frameworks of Cutrona (1996) and the qualitative research findings of Schultheiss, Kress, Manzi, and Glasscock (2001), Blustein et al. (2001), Schultheiss, Palma, Predragovich, and Glasscock (2002), and Phillips, Christopher-Sisk, and Gravino (2001), this study developed a Parental Support Scale. To ensure the reliability of the scale items, a pretest was undertaken with 371 university students before conducting the formal test. A statistical analysis was conducted to determine the item, factor, and scale validity, and 18 items from four factors were subsequently revised. The first factor was parental information support (provision of career information as well as guidance and suggestions) with a Cronbach’s α value at .92 and explained variance at 54.28%, the second factor was emotional support (care, support, and encouragement from parents) with a Cronbach’s α value at .94 and explained variance at 9.2%, the third factor was autonomy support (respect from parents for the career choices of their children) with a Cronbach’s α value at .92 and explained variance at 7.56%, the fourth factor was tangible assistance (practical participation and assistance by parents, including financial assistance) with a Cronbach’s α value at .87 and explained variance at 7.02%, and the total explained variance was 78.06% for the four factors.

The scales were measured on a 6-point Likert-type scale (1 = extremely untrue, 6 = extremely true); the higher the score, the more a student agrees the extent of parental support given during the course of their career development. Reliability test of the responses from the 633 valid samples yielded Cronbach’s α of .92 for information support, .94 for emotional support, .92 for autonomy support, and .87 for tangible assistance. These results indicated that the scale exhibited satisfactory reliability.

CDSE Scale

This study adopted the short form of the CDSE proposed by Betz, Klein, and Taylor (1996). At a total of 25 items, the scale was divided into five dimensions: gathering occupational information (e.g., “I am confident in determining the employment trend of a given profession for the future”), goal selection (e.g., “I am confident in selecting courses or a profession that is suitable for me”), problem-solving (e.g., “I am confident in finding solutions to failures I encounter in learning or work”), accurate self-appraisal (e.g., “I am confident in selecting the most suitable profession out of my future possible ones”), and making plans for the future (e.g., “I am confident in planning my career goals in the next five years”). A 5-point Likert-type scale was adopted for the question items (1 = no confidence at all, 5 = complete confidence); higher scores indicated that the participants were more confident in their ability to solve problems in their future careers.

Regarding the reliability test, the Cronbach’s α for the subscales of gathering occupational information, goal selection, problem-solving, accurate self-appraisal, and making plans for the future were .81, .84, .77, .79, and .86, respectively. These results were consistent with those obtained by Betz et al. (1996). Thus, the scale was considered reliable. In addition, a CFA was conducted to confirm that the theoretical structure of the scale was appropriate for use in Taiwan. The scale yielded a χ² of 1,138.78, a root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) of .075, a comparative-fit index (CFI) value of .97, a standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) of .057, and a goodness-of-fit index (GFI) of .87, indicating fair goodness of fit of the model and the scale was acceptable.

CDDQ

This study modified CDDQ-R (Gati & Saka, 2001) to measure career indecision. This scale enabled measuring the cognitive ability and career information factors related to indecision. The original CDDQ-R scale included “lack of readiness,” “lack of information,” and “inconsistent information.” In keeping with the purpose of the present study, which intends to examine career information, and avoiding overlaps with other variables of the study, “lack of information” and the unreliable information subscale in “inconsistent information” were selected to be included. At a total of 17 items, the scale was divided into four subscales: insufficient information gathering, lacking information on selves, lacking information on decisions, and unreliable information. The scales were measured on a 6-point Likert-type scale (1 = extremely untrue, 6 = extremely true); the higher the score suggests college students are more career undecided due to factors of career information.

According to the reliability test, the Cronbach’s αs for the subscales were .89 (insufficient information gathering), .89 (lacking information on selves), .86 (lacking information on decisions), and .72 (unreliable information), verifying that the subscales achieved acceptable reliability. CFA was performed to confirm that the theoretical structure of the scale was appropriate for use in Taiwan, yielding a χ² of 694.80, RMSEA of .094, CFI of .97, SRMR of .052, and GFI of .88. These results indicated that the model was of fair fit and the scale was acceptable.

EPCD Scale

This study modified the EPCD Scale (Saka, Gati, & Kelly, 2008) to measure indecisiveness. This scale enabled measuring the emotional and personality factors of career decision-making difficulties. The original scale was divided into “pessimistic views,” “anxiety,” and “self and identity.” In keeping with the purpose of the present study and avoiding overlaps with other variables of the study, only anxiety was chosen to be included. At a total of 12 items, the EPCD was divided into three subscales: anxiety about the process, anxiety about uncertainty, and anxiety about the outcome. The scales were measured on a 6-point Likert-type scale (1 = extremely untrue, 6 = extremely true); the higher the score suggests college students are more career undecided due to factors of emotions and personality traits.

The reliability test yielded the Cronbach’s α of .89 (anxiety about the process), .82 (anxiety about uncertainty), and .91 (anxiety about the outcome) for the subscales, indicating satisfactory reliability for all subscales. In addition, a CFA was conducted to confirm the theoretical structure of the scale for use in Taiwan, yielding a χ² of 208.22, RMSEA of .071, CFI of .98, SRMR of .055, and GFI of .95, indicating that the model was of fair fit and the scale was acceptable.

Results

Correlation of Parental Support and Career Decision Self-Efficacy With Career Indecision and Indecisiveness

Before the regression analysis was conducted, the correlations among the variables were examined. Table 1 shows that parental support exhibited a significant correlation with all the five subscales of career decision self-efficacy but not with the majority of career indecision and indecisiveness. All dimensions of career decision self-efficacy were significantly and negatively correlated with all dimensions of career indecision and indecisiveness (p < .01).

Table 1.

Correlation of the Measured Variables.

Variables	Mean	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
PE	4.33	.93
PA	4.65	1.00	.63**
PI	4.16	1.01	.78**	.52**
PT	4.62	1.01	.54**	.48**	.55**
GOI	3.63	.68	.19**	.13**	.19**	.15**
GS	3.63	.73	.23**	.22**	.19**	.18**	.55**
PS	3.57	.67	.24**	.17**	.21**	.19**	.59**	.62**
ASA	3.75	.66	.20**	.17**	.16**	.17**	.57**	.66**	.64**
MPF	3.39	.76	.24**	.13**	.22**	.12**	.64**	.63**	.63**	.67**
IIG	3.70	.98	.01	−.02	.01	−.04	−.29**	−.40**	−.32**	−.39**	−.34**
LIS	3.64	1.01	−.09*	.00	−.06	−.05	−.30**	−.36**	−.31**	−.41**	−.40**	.70**
LID	3.78	.94	−.05	−.01	−.01	−.03	−.36**	−.40**	−.33**	−.37**	−.39**	.71**	.68**
UI	3.14	.92	−.11*	−.09*	−.05	−.11**	−.24**	−.35**	−.25**	−.36**	−.28**	.52**	.57**	.57**
AP	3.88	.92	−.03	.02	−.04	.02	−.14*	−.19**	−.20**	−.17**	−.20**	.46**	.41**	.46**	.35**
AU	3.87	.94	−.05	−.06	−.01	−.01	−.22*	−.35**	−.23**	−.28**	−.30**	.60**	.61**	.64**	.51**	.56**
AO	3.48	1.07	−.06	−.10*	−.01	−.06	−.20**	−.37**	−.31**	−.33**	−.26**	.47**	.51**	.50**	.43**	.37**	.59**

Note. PE = parental emotional support; PA = parental autonomy support; PI = parental information support; PT = parental tangible assistance; GOI = gathering occupational information; GS = goal selection; PS = Problem-Solving; ASA = accurate self-appraisal; MPF = making plans for the future; IIG = insufficient information gathering; LIS = lacking information on selves; LID = lacking information on decisions; UI = unreliable information; AP = anxiety about the process; AU = anxiety about uncertainty; AO = anxiety about the outcome.

*p < .05. **p < .01.

Moreover, canonical correlation analysis (Table 2) revealed that two dependent variables, career indecision and indecisiveness, were significantly correlated.

Table 2.

Canonical Analysis of Career Indecision and Indecisiveness.

Root	R^C	R ²	Wilks’s λ	F	Significance
1	.737	.543	.452	46.419	.000

Note. R^C = canonical correlation coefficient.

The Mediating Effect of Career Decision Self-Efficacy

This study used hierarchical regression analysis to verify the mediating effect of career decision self-efficacy. According to Baron and Kenny (1986), the mediating effect must meet three conditions. The first regression analysis was conducted to examine whether the independent variables were significant predictors of the dependent variables. The second regression analysis was conducted to examine whether the independent variables were significant predictors of the mediating variables and to determine whether the mediating variables were significant predictors of the dependent variables. Finally, the third regression analysis investigated both the independent and mediating variables’ ability to predict the dependent variables. Where the mediating variables exhibited significant predictive power, the predictive power of the independent variables to the dependent variables decreased significantly. Subsequently, when the predictive power of the independent variables toward the dependent variables became nonsignificant, the model demonstrated complete mediation; when the predictive power of the independent variables to the dependent variables remained significant, the model achieved partial mediation.

To verify the first of the aforementioned conditions, the predictive power of the independent variables toward the dependent variables was examined. The results in Table 3 (upper part) show that only parental emotional support was a significant predictor of unreliable information (β = −.15, p < .05). Moreover, the significance-level regression coefficients were negative, indicating that the more emotional support parents provide to their children, the less career indecision their children experience. However, parental support was not a significant predictor of indecisiveness. Moreover, parental support did not yield a high level of explained variance for career indecision and indecisiveness.

Table 3.

Results From the Hierarchical Regression Analysis that Predicts Career Indecision and Indecisiveness From Parental Support and Career Decision Self-Efficacy.

Variables	Career Indecision				Indecisiveness
Variables	Insufficient Information Gathering	Lacking Information on Selves	Lacking Information on Decisions	Unreliable Information	Anxiety About the Process	Anxiety About Uncertainty	Anxiety About the Outcome
Parental support
Emotional support	.04	−0.14	−.10	−0.15*	−.05	−.10	−.07
Autonomy support	−.03	0.09	.04	−0.01	.06	−.04	−.09
Information support	.03	0.01	.06	0.12	−.06	.09	.11
Tangible assistance	−.05	−0.03	−.03	−0.09	.05	.01	−.03
R ²	.00	0.01	.00	0.02	.01	.01	.01
F	.38	1.74	.62	2.91*	.79	.94	1.83
Career decision self-efficacy
Gathering occupational information	−0.03	−0.01	−0.13*	−0.02	0.01	.02	.07
Goal selection	−0.22***	−0.10	−0.19***	−0.21***	−0.08	−.27***	−.26***
Problem-solving	−0.02	0.03	−0.02	0.04	−0.11	.06	−.12*
Accurate self-appraisal	−0.18**	−0.21***	−0.05	−0.23***	0.03	−.05	−.14*
Making plans for the future	−0.04	−0.21***	−0.15*	0.00	−0.10	−.14*	.03
R ²	0.19	0.20	0.21	0.15	0.05	.14	.16
F	27.88***	29.86***	31.17***	20.52***	6.22***	19.08***	22.49***

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

The second condition, the predictive power of the independent variables toward the mediating variables, was examined. The results in Table 4 show that parental support had good predictability for career decision self-efficacy, with parental emotional support being the best predictor in particular. Furthermore, all of the significant regression coefficients were positive, indicating that the more children feel about the parental support they receive, the higher their career decision self-efficacy.

Table 4.

Results from the Hierarchical Regression Analysis that Predicts Career Decision Self-Efficacy From Parental Support.

Variables	Gathering Occupational Information	Goal Selection	Problem- Solving	Accurate Self-Appraisal	Making Plans for the Future
Emotional support	0.11	0.13	0.17*	0.14*	0.22**
Autonomy support	−0.01	0.11	0.00	0.06	−0.05
Information support	0.08	0.01	0.05	−0.02	0.08
Tangible assistance	0.06	0.05	0.06	0.07	−0.02
R ²	0.04	0.06	0.06	0.05	0.06
F	6.25***	9.16***	9.15***	7.04***	9.50***

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

The second condition, the predictive power of the mediating variables toward the dependent variables, was examined next. The results in Table 3 (lower part) show that career decision self-efficacy was a significant overall predictor of career indecision and indecisiveness. In addition, the significant β coefficients were all negative, indicating that the higher the career decision self-efficacy of Taiwanese college students, the lower the degree of indecision. Regarding the predictive power of each dimension of career decision self-efficacy, goal selection and accurate self-appraisal were significant predictors of the dimensions of career indecision and indecisiveness.

Figure 1 presents the results of significance from the regression analysis found in Tables 3 and 4; those that did not satisfy the first and second conditions suggested by Baron and Kenny (1986) were excluded from the mediation test. If the mediation model was confirmed, then a Sobel test was conducted to verify the significance of the mediation effect. If z > 1.96 or z < −1.96 occurred in the test formula, then the mediating effect of a particular dimension achieved statistical significance at the level of .05 (Frazier, Tix, & Barron, 2004).

Figure 1.

The mediational model.

Table 5 shows that when both the independent and mediating variables were included in the regression model to predict the dependent variables, only accurate self-appraisal satisfied the level of significance for the mediating variables. Moreover, the β coefficient for parental emotional support predicting unreliable information changed from −.11 (p < .05) to −.03 (ns, the mediating effect of accurate self-appraisal), and the z value following the Sobel test was −4.31, indicating that the mediating effect reached the level of significance. Thus, the effect of parental emotional support in predicting unreliable information was completely mediated through accurate self-appraisal.

Table 5.

The Mediating Effect of Career Decision Self-Efficacy.

Variables	Unreliable Information
Independent variable
Emotional support	−0.11*	−0.03
(ΔR²)	0.01
Mediating variable
Accurate self-appraisal		−0.35***
(ΔR²)		0.12
R ²	0.01	0.13
F	6.24*	40.45***

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Discussion

The mediating effect of career decision self-efficacy on the relationship between parental support and career indecision and indecisiveness was the primary focus of this study. The results indicate that career decision self-efficacy plays a significant mediating role only in the relationship between parental emotional support and unreliable information of career indecision. Parental support did not have significant predictive power toward career indecision and indecisiveness in most cases.

Unreliable information is caused by the conflict between self-awareness and others on an individual’s understanding or between acquired career information and existing career information. Concern and consolation from parents encourage children to overcome the indecision that results from such conflict. Accurate self-appraisal completely mediates the relationship between parental emotional support and unreliable information. This indicates that love, care, and encouragement provided by parents enhance children’s efficacy to select courses or professions that are suited to their abilities or related to their ideal way of living. Moreover, accurate self-appraisals are strong negative predictors of unreliable information. All in all, accurate self-appraisals completely mediate the relationship between parental emotional support and unreliable information.

Regarding the lack of support for the mediating effect of career decision self-efficacy on the relationship between parental support and indecision, one possible explanation could be that this lack was attributable to the maturing autonomy of university students. Parental support might have only a supporting function in indecision rather than have a vital influence; consequently, parental support lacks importance. This result is different from Western studies (Fisher & Griggs, 1995; Nauta & Kokaly, 2001; Schultheiss et al., 2001), possibly ascribed to the reserved emotional expression of traditional Chinese families toward their children. Emotional support involves providing love, care, encouragement, consolation, and a sense of security to children through interacting with them, and it can be expressed through both action and verbal communication. However, Chinese parents typically do not express love verbally but through action (Chao, 2004). Chinese parents are generally more reserved in expressing love and do not express emotions directly to their children (Chao, 2004), which is in contrast to Western parents, who typically express encouragement and consolation verbally, allowing children to sense it directly, thereby having a greater effect. If parents in Taiwan can express support to their children directly, allowing children to sense it more clearly, then they might influence the career decision self-efficacy and indecision of university students more substantially.

Parental support exerted only a minor effect on indecision. Moreover, the results of this study reveal that university students in Taiwan think that parental support is a significant predictor of career indecision alone, and it is not a significant predictor of indecisiveness. Career indecision belongs to an indecision caused by a lack of career information. In a comparison between college students in Taiwan and the United States, Mau (2001) found that Taiwanese students scored much higher on the career indecision scale than their American counterparts. Therefore, a possible explanation is that the significant effect of parental support stems from the high degree of career indecision among Taiwanese college students. Another possible explanation might be that career education in Western societies provides children with a foundation for pursuing their careers and many opportunities for exploring career information. Conversely, the secondary school stages in Taiwan are characterized primarily by college entrance examinations, causing the careers of young people to develop much slower than those in Western countries. When deciding which university to enroll in, gathering career information is critical for students. Parental emotional support encourages students to progress; when students experience frustration, providing parental support and consolation encourages them to continue exploring their career goals. Downing and Nauta (2010) maintained that such exploration is a significant predictor of career indecision. The aforementioned dimensions of parental support, particularly emotional support, provide university students a sense of security and courage to explore and experience their own career and find information related to their ideal professions, thereby decreasing career indecision.

Parental support in the present study could not predict indecisiveness. This result was inconsistent with Downing and Nauta (2010), whose study found that parent–child anxious attachment can predict indecisiveness. The authors suggest that indecisiveness pertains to a psychological trait, hence a deep entangled child–parent relationship (e.g., anxiety attachment) is needed to exert a significant influence; thus, no correlation between parental support and indecisiveness was found in the present study.

The authors argue that college students may have reached the stage of autonomous development, and parental impact no longer plays a key role, with the major influence coming from their peers. It is therefore recommended that future studies on environmental support variables to incorporate peer support to validate its influence on college students’ indecision. Furthermore, since the participants in this study involve only college students, the conclusion of the relatively low explained variance on parental support toward the prediction of indecision cannot be generalized to students of other age groups. We suggest future research to target high school students. On the one hand, the parental influence may be more substantial; on the other hand, high school students face the potential career choice of picking a major, an important turning point in life, thus environmental variables are more likely to affect their career development. It would be even better if a study can comparatively examine high school students and college students who are in different periods in life and explore the significance of individual variables (e.g., autonomy) and environmental variables, and whether maturity plays a role in the disparities. These conclusions and suggestions serve as a reference for future research.

The present study found that career decision self-efficacy plays a mediating role between parental support and career development. Hence, career counselors are suggested to assist the people in need by enhancing their career decision self-efficacy, which can be more effective in reducing career indecision. According to Bandura (1977), the formation of self-efficacy is rooted in four reference points: performance accomplishment, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and emotional arousal. These four reference points may act as a guidepost for counselors conducting career counseling sessions.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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