Introduction: The current study investigated the developmental trajectory of adolescents' career decision-making self-efficacy (self-efficacy) and ambivalence in career decision-making (ambivalence) as well as the longitudinal impact of career-related parental behaviors (parental behaviors) on self-efficacy and self-efficacy on ambivalence.
Methods: We recruited 588 students from two elementary schools and three middle schools from city of Guangzhou, Province Guangdong in China. Participants were from Grade 4 to Grade 9 with an average age of 11.88 (SD = 1.63), 321 (54.6%) were male, and 9 (1.53%) were missing for gender. We applied a latent growth model using data from all three waves.
Results and conclusion: After applying a latent growth model using data from all three waves, the results have indicated that self-efficacy decreased as these participants transitioned from childhood to early adolescence, and that their ambivalence fell on an increasing trajectory. Cross-sectionally, it indicated that "support" of parental behaviors was positively associated with self-efficacy, and "interference" of parental behaviors was positively associated with ambivalence. Longitudinally, "interference" of parental behaviors was negatively predicting the change rate of self-efficacy. A predictive relation did not exist between self-efficacy and ambivalence, such that a negative correlation was observed on a cross-sectional level. Implications and limitations are discussed as well.
Keywords: adolescents; ambivalence; career decision making self-efficacy; career-related parental behaviors; latent growth model.
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