Career maturity amongst first year university students in a commerce faculty at a tertiary institution in the Western Cape

Abstract

Career maturity is an essential requirement in human existence. Super (1979) identified five stages which highlight the level of maturity an individual should have achieved at a certain age. However, increasingly, it is being recognised that individuals are not at the level of career maturity where they ought to be. In order to address the matter relating to career maturity, the current research investigated the nature thereof amongst first year university students. The prevalence of specific aspects of career maturity (namely, self-information, decisionmaking, career information, integration of self-information and career information, and career planning) were investigated. In addition, the correlations between the aspects of career maturity and certain biographical variables such as age, gender and race were examined. Career maturity refers generally to the individual’s readiness to make informed, ageappropriate career decisions and deal with career development tasks (Savickas, 1984). In order to establish what the career maturity level is, a sample of 303 first year university students’ responses were collected. A biographical questionnaire and Career DecisionMaking questionnaire were administered to the respondents. The sample group (N=303) consisted of first year university male and female students in the commerce faculty at a tertiary education institution in the Western Cape. The results indicate 1 that there is a statistically significant relationship between self-knowledge, career information, career planning, integration of self and career information, decision-making and career maturity amongst students who participated. While there were no statistically significant differences in career maturity based on age and gender, there were some race differences in career maturity. The results yielded some interesting findings, but need to be interpreted with caution since a convenience sample was used, thus restricting the generalizability to the wider population of students