Career maturity among university students in Jordan: The case for social studies

Statement of the problem

The university system is an important place to prepare students for the national and international workforces. During those years, students engage in career exploration with regard to their aptitudes, interests, abilities, and personality to make the best career choices for successful employability in the future (Beauchamp & Kiewra, 2004). Moreover, research on the career maturity of university students is outdated and few comparison studies exist worldwide. Further, to the researcher’s best knowledge, little or no studies exist in Jordan on the career maturity of university social studies students. Therefore, the primary purpose of the study was to determine the maturity level of university social studies students in Jordan.

Research objectives

To achieve the primary purpose of the study, the following research objectives were formulated:

To determine the level of career maturity among university social studies students from one public university in Jordan based on Liptak’s career planning scale (CPS);

Importance of the study

The present study is significant for a number of stakeholders. First, university administration can use the results obtained from this study to understand the level of their students’ career maturity. Further steps may be taken to us the instrument to determine the career maturity of all students on a continuous basis so as to be able to take proactive measures where necessary. For example, areas of weakness can be determined and needed workshops may be implemented to improve career maturity of students. Second, faculty members can advise students on the importance of making correct career choices for their future success. Third, vocational centers on the university campus can use the results of the study to help students make educated career choices that are aligned with their aptitudes, interests, abilities, and personality.

Study participants

The participants of the study were university undergraduate students who were enrolled in social studies classes offered by the Faculty of Educational Sciences at one public university in Jordan. The total number of students who completed the survey was 284 students with a 100% response rate. The sample distribution was 24 males (8.5%) and 260 females (91.5%). There were 59 sophomores (20.8%), 175 juniors (61.60%), and 50 seniors (17.60%).

Instrumentation

The instrument used in this study was the CPS developed by Liptak (2008) to assess career maturity among university students. The CPS is grounded in the same theoretical framework as Super’s theory of life stages (Super, 1957). The CPS is comprised of 48 items distributed equally on six subscales as follows: self-knowledge (e.g. “I know what kind of occupation appeals to my personality”); knowledge of the world of work (e.g. “I have researched the types of skills employers expect in new employees”); knowledge of occupations (e.g. “I have observed workers in occupations that interest me”); career decision-making (e.g. “I have collected enough information to make effective career decisions”); career planning (e.g. “I have discussed my career plan with a career professional”); and career implementation (e.g. “I know how to find openings for the jobs that interest me”).

The CPS has proven to have acceptable validity and acceptable reliability coefficients for the subscales as follows: self-knowledge (α = 0.86), knowledge of the world of work (α = 0.92), knowledge of occupations (α = 0.87), career decision-making (α = 0.90), career planning (α = 0.86), and career implementation (α = 0.92) (Liptak, 2008). The instrument takes approximately 15 min to complete.

An Arabic version of the CPS was achieved through a translation from English to Arabic by a faculty members who is fluent in both English and Arabic languages. Then, one faculty member evaluated the translation to verify the accuracy and validity of translation. For this study of university students, a 4-point Likert-type response format was used: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = agree, and 4 = strongly agree.

The CPS was pilot tested with a group of 20 students from the faculty of educational sciences to determine necessary modifications to the wording and understanding of the instrument questions. Additionally, a demographic questionnaire was developed to collect general background information about the participants such as gender and educational level. As this was the first time that the CPS was used with Jordanian students, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis, which resulted in six factors based on 34 items (see Appendix 1).

Data collection and analysis

The survey data were collected during the first term for the academic years 2015/2016 from students enrolled in social studies classes. The nature and purpose of the study was explained to students who were assured the confidentiality of and voluntary nature of the study. During class sessions, students completed and returned the surveys to the researcher. To achieve the first objective of the study, descriptive statistics were used including means and standard deviations. To achieve the second objective, independent sample t-test and one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were utilized.

Results related to research objective 1

Research objective 1 was to determine the level of career maturity among university social studies students from one public university in Jordan based on Liptak’s CPS. Means and standard deviations were used to accomplish this research objective. Table 1 presents means and standard deviations for each factor ranked by the highest mean value.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

Means and standard deviations for the six subscales of the CPS.

Subscale	Means	Standard deviations
Self-knowledge	3.18	0.45
Career decision-making	3.06	0.53
Career implementation	3.02	0.48
Knowledge of occupations	2.98	0.55
Knowledge of the world of work	2.88	0.47
Career planning	2.74	0.52

Higher mean values indicate a higher level of students’ career maturity whereas lower mean values indicate a lower level of students’ career maturity. With regard to the classification of mean scores, three ranges were used: mean scores of 1–1.99 were considered a low level of career maturity as these scores reflected the “disagree” range on the test; mean scores of 2–2.99 were considered an above-average level of career maturity as 2–2.99 reflected the “agree” range on the test; and mean scores 3–4 were considered high levels of career maturity as these represented the “strongly agree” range on the test. As shown in Table 1, the mean of the self-knowledge subscale is higher than all other means, followed by career decision-making, and career implementation. These three factors all had a high level of career maturity. The rest of the factors had an average level of career maturity. Note, however, that all means were either in the above-average or high range.

Results related to research objective 2

Research objective 2 was about determining if significant statistical differences existed on each of the six dimensions of Liptak’s CPS based on differences in gender and educational level. With regard to gender, independent sample t-tests were used. As shown in Table 2, no significant differences were detected between male and female university students with regard to career maturity on the six dimensions. With regard to year of study, the ANOVA statistic was used to determine if significant differences existed on the six dimensions of Liptak’s CPS based on students’ educational level. As shown in Table 3, significant differences were found on the career planning dimension based on year of study. However, significant differences were not found on the rest of the dimensions. The mean value for sophomores = 2.64, juniors = 2.80, and seniors = 2.74.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 2.

Gender differences on the six dimensions of Liptak’s career planning scale.

Gender N	Means	t	p
Career planning
M 24	2.82
F 260	2.73	.81	.41
Self-knowledge
M 24	3.02
F 260	3.20	1.81	.07
Knowledge of occupations
M 24	3.05
F 260	2.97	.67	.49
Career implementation
M 24	2.92
F 260	3.02	.95	.33
Knowledge of world of work
M 24	3.02
F 260	2.87	1.47	.14
Career decision-making
M 24	3.09
F 260	3.05	.29	.76

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 3.

Group differences among sophomore, junior, and senior university students on Liptak’s career planning scale.

Sum of squares		df	F	p
Career planning
Between groups	1.70	2	3.17	.04
Within groups	75.20	281
Total	76.90	283
Self-knowledge
Between groups	.61	2	1.51	.22
Within groups	56.96	281
Total	57.57	283
Knowledge of occupations
Between groups	1.59	2	2.60	.07
Within groups	85.86	281
Total	87.45	283
Career implementation
Between groups	.55	2	1.15	.31
Within groups	66.92	281
Total	67.47	283
Knowledge of world of work
Between groups	.10	2	.23	.79
Within groups	64.18	281
Total	64.28	283
Career decision-making
Between groups	.68	2	1.21	.30
Within groups	80.01	281
Total	80.69	283

Discussion related to research objective 1

The results related to objective 1 indicated that the university students under study had mean levels of career maturity for all domains in the “agree” (i.e. > 2.0) endorsed range, with self-knowledge being the highest (see Table 1). Under the self-knowledge heading, students were able to identify their talents, interests, skills, and abilities related to their future careers; identified careers that appealed to their values and personalities, identify how to transfer their skills from one job to another, and identify the working conditions that motivated them to do well on a job, as the most important.

Also, students exhibited high levels of career maturity on career decision-making and career implementation. With regard to career decision-making, students had collected enough information to make effective career decisions that matched their interests, values, skills, and abilities with their chosen careers, and discuss career options and decisions with friends and family. As far as career implementation is concerned, students knew how to convey their skills on a resume and in an interview, demonstrated the skills and behaviors necessary for a successful job interview, knew how to use computer software and the Internet to assist in job search, knew how to find openings for jobs that interested them, and knew how to develop and maintain an effective network to find jobs. The above results are consistent with previous research (Levinson et al., 1998; Super, 1990).

These results are justified by the fact that the university under study had a vocational and training center that prepares students for the world of work. Within this center, students can attend training workshops during their university years that can help them identify their talents, skills, abilities, values, personalities, and match them with the desirable career. Also, students have the option to learn about job descriptions, job specifications, and working conditions for their future careers and can discuss these career options and decisions with trained counselors. Further, this center offers students training workshops that teach them how to write effective resumes, succeed in a job interview, and use technology programs to search for job openings.

Students exhibited above-average levels of career maturity on the rest of the dimensions (knowledge of occupations, knowledge of the world of work, and career planning). With regard to knowledge of occupations dimension, this reflected that students talked with and observed workers who occupied the same career that are of interest to them, researched the earnings of workers in careers that interested them, and read books and magazines about jobs that interested them.

With regard to knowledge of the world of work dimension, students “agreed” that they were aware of the changes that were taking place in the job market, researched the type of skills employers expected from new employees, were aware of the costs of training programs related to their chosen career, and explored the job growth trends affecting their careers in the future. As far as career planning was concerned, students agreed that they had developed short- and long-term career goals; developed time lines for accomplishing each of their career goals; discussed their career plans with career professionals; read about or attended classes or programs on career planning; and had a comprehensive plan for integrating work, family, and leisure roles. The above results are consistent with the views of Liptak (2008).

The reason why students exhibited moderate level on the above three dimensions is potentially because university students do not have the time and money necessary to observe workers in the job market. Also students might not have specific documentation on the internet that can refer them to job category earnings. Moreover, students might not be able to keep up with the job trends due to fluctuating economic trends and job growth trends that take place in the world today. Finally, students might not have sufficient information (e.g. grades) to fully develop future plans.

Discussion related to research objective 2

The results related to the second research objective indicated that significant differences were not present on the six dimensions of the Liptak’s CPS based on gender. This result is not consistent with previous research which indicated that female students scored higher on career maturity measures than did male students (Constantine & Greer, 2003; Creed & Patton, 2003; Lee, 2001). This outcome might reflect cultural differences (i.e. this is the first study of this kind conducted in Jordan), might reflect community changes generally (i.e. today’s university students are more aware of equal opportunities across gender), or it might reflect our sample, which contained only a small proportion of males (91.5% female versus 8.5% male), and thus might be biased in this respect.

With regard to the educational level, students differed only on the career planning dimension. Based on the mean values, juniors and seniors were more mature than sophomores. This result is consistent with previous studies (McCaffrey et al., 1984; Ren, 2004).

Based on the above discussion, a number of recommendations are provided for the field of study. First, this research is important to university personnel who work closely with university students to prepare them for the world of work. For example, the study’s instrument can be used to measure students’ levels of career maturity on six aspects as they progress from freshmen levels to senior levels. This information can be used to determine the value of benefits provided to students by the university system. Proactive measures can be taken to determine gaps and to remedy them in due time.

Second, career professionals should focus on three important aspects of career maturity (knowledge of occupations, knowledge of the world of work, and career planning) when guiding students. Based on that, arranged visitations to the workplace should be set during their freshmen years so that they can talk with and observe workers who occupy the same careers that interest them. Third, students should be provided with information about job descriptions, job specifications, working conditions, expected changes in supply and demand for their careers, training needed in the future, and expected earnings of different careers. Further, the university system should establish career maturity courses that help students succeed in their future careers. Fourth, more research should be undertaken in the area of career maturity as follows: determining career maturity of a sample of students starting from their freshmen years to their senior years, comparing career maturity of students from public and private universities, comparing career maturity of students across cultures, and investigating factors impacting career maturity through qualitative studies.