Qualitative Study Of The Impact Of Family Factors On College Students’ Career Choice

Being in their late teens, college students are in the transition period of their career exploration, whose developmental task is to find out their professional orientation and shape specific career choices. The issue that how college students shape their career choices concerns their future career development and their contributions to our country. However, current theories of career development are mainly Western-based; compared to Western culture, Chinese culture has more family tendency. Under this specific cultural background, the study of family factors in the impact of career choices of college students enjoys important theoretical and practical significance.Using qualitative research method, this paper has depth interviews on12subjects (there are three juniors, three seniors, three second-grade postgraduate and three third-grade postgraduate respectively, of which seven are boys and five are girls) and aims to study family factors in the impact mechanism of career choices of college students. To be more specific, this paper takes the grounded theory of qualitative analysis to analyze the impact of family factors on career development and choices of the interview subjects such as family residence, economic level, the academic atmosphere, etc. Research results are as follows:(1)Family can influence college students’career choice in two ways.On one hand,family can affect the career choice of college students directly by affecting job result.On the other hand, family influence college students’career choice through the influence of vocational self-concept.There is a close relationship between career choices and their vocational self-concept of college students. The vocational self-concept is the basis of college students’career choices and is to be further developed and improved in the process of career development and choices.(2)College students’vocational self-concept is consists of physical self-concept, career self-concept and supportive self-concept. Physical self-concept is the individual external characteristics that can be observed directly; career self-concept includes the interests, abilities and values; supportive self-concept refers to the social support perceived by individuals in the process of career choices.(3)Family palys an important role in the formation and development of college students’vocational self-concept. First of all, the genetic determinants determine individuals’phusiological characteristics. Second, the factors such as family residence, economic level and the educational value hold a critical role in individuals’interest, capability and values. Third, the social support provided by the family has a direct impact on the job-hunting results of college students.(4)With the raising of educational level, the core of interpersonal communication shifts from family to the whole society; thus, the impact of family is gradually weakened, stimulating individuals to develop new vacational self-concept.This paper mainly analyzes how family factors affect the career choices of college students. However, the career choices of college students is not only influenced by family factors, school factors (including teachers, classmates, study environment, etc.) also plays an important role in it. For the purpose of enabling individuals to better complete their developmental tasks and make more suitable career chioces in every stages of their vocational development, this paper also presents some suggestions for students, families and schools.