Career Doubt in University Students: The Role of Education, Career Aspirations and Coping Skills

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to investigate the effects of coping skills and career aspirations on career doubts among undergraduate students at Isfahan University. The design of this study, which is a basic research, is descriptive and correlational. The statistical population includes all BA students of Isfahan University in the academic year 2018–2019. The sample group consists of 248 students (154 females and 94 males) that was selected using stratified random sampling proportional to the sample size. The data collection instruments includes Career Doubt Questionnaire (CDQ), Academic and Career Aspirations Questionnaire (ACAQ), and Coping Inventory (CI). Data were analyzed using Pearson's correlation coefficient and multivariate regression analysis in SPSS-23 software. The results indicate that there is a significant negative relationship between task-oriented coping skills, educational and career aspirations, and career doubts. There is also a significant positive relationship between disengagement orientation coping skills and career doubts. Besides, disengagement coping skills predicted 34% of the variance in career doubts in the first step and 36% in the second step along with academic career aspirations. Thus, it can be concluded that the use of coping skills other than engagement increases students' career doubts.Moreover, academic career desires along with disengagement-oriented coping strategies play a role in career doubts.

Keywords

• career doubt
• education-career aspirations
• coping skills
• task-orientation
• disengagement-orientation