The effect of teaching quality on student career choice: the mediating role of student goal orientation

Vocational education plays an essential role in preparing the skilled and superior workforce. Specifically, its role is to help individuals identify their suitability, readiness, and capacity for work1. In many studies in the field of vocational psychology, maturity in student career choices is a critical stage to shape students’ work readiness. The purpose of learning in vocational schools is not only to shape students’ work skills but also, and more importantly, it is that students mature in their career choices. Numerous studies were conducted to explore factors influencing career choices [1–4]. Moreover, these factors are on the agenda of future research to identify fundamental mechanisms that explain the effects of career exploration and contingencies of each of these effects [5]. However, until now, studies that discuss how vocational learning can shape students’ career choices are still limited.

At present, vocational education faces the problem of irrelevance of student career preferences to school [6–9]. Another study revealed that 90% of vocational high school graduates do not work in fields that fit their education and only 10% work in relevant areas [10]. The study conducted by Richardson revealed that 38.1% of students who had experience in the hospitality industry were not interested in working in the tourism and hospitality industry after graduation [8]. The prime reason is that the experience of working in the tourism and hospitality industry has an impact on emergence of negative views of career plans in the industry [8; 11]. Second, students generally do not believe that careers in tourism and hospitality will benefit them [7]. Third, many students do not make full use of career-oriented resources available on campus when they are looking for work [12]. This problem illustrates that the teaching program in schools has not been entirely successful in preparing student career choices according to their needs and interests.

Theoretically, the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) states that experience/ learning, and contextual factors can influence individual careers [13]. Empirically, previous studies showed that experiential learning greatly helped in preparing students for career readiness [14]. Also, Tran, Williams, Miter, Walker, and Carter state that learning styles and types of motivation determine individual career choices [15]. Meanwhile, House revealed that students who expressed an interest in science careers reported that they often linked what they learned in science to their daily lives [16]. In general, previous studies indicate that the role of situational factors (e.g., teaching quality) largely determines individual career choice beliefs, while personal factors have not been discussed. Meanwhile, SCCT says that individual career choice is not only determined by situational factors but also needs to involve other factors such as personal ones.

On the other hand, personal factors are personal agents carried out by people to direct their own chosen behaviour and are believed to be more proximal and influential in individual career decision making2 [13]. One personal factor that is considered important is goal orientation. The underlying orientation of a person pursuing his or her career includes two things; namely: goal orientation learning and performance goal orientation [17]. Both types of goal orientations have different roles and cannot be equated. Previous studies showed that learning goal orientations were able to predict individual career choice beliefs [18]. Generally, the goal orientation and academic competencies also play a role in career success [19]. Although there have been many studies that discuss these essential factors, the review discusses them separately. Studies that examine collaboratively and interactively the antecedents of career choice beliefs in vocational students are still limited.

Therefore, studies to explore shared effects that focus on the impact of teaching quality and goal orientation on student career choices are critical. We believe that the collaborative role between personal and situational factors can jointly shape the maturity of vocational student career choices. In other words, the quality of teaching developed based on student career goal orientation will greatly help shape students’ career choice beliefs after they graduate. Thus, the purpose of this study is to develop and test new mediation models that involve the interplay of teaching quality, learning goal orientation, and performance goal orientations to improve student career choices. Specifically, the purpose of this study is as follows:

– examine the compatibility of the conceptual model of career choice with empirical data;

– investigate the effect of teaching quality on career choices of vocational students;

– analyse mediating effects of goal orientation learning and performance goal

orientation on the impact of teaching quality on career choices of vocational students.