Understanding Adolescents' Career Decision Making and Career Wellbeing in Nigeria: A Mixed-Methods Study

Abstract

The choice of a career is one of the crucial decisions humans make and is particularly demanding for adolescents because the challenge of self-awareness or construction of one’s identity becomes more pronounced during adolescence. To ensure adolescents’ chances of making satisfying career decisions defined in this study as that which is in line with their interests and abilities, and of their own volition, this study examined the relationship between parental and teaching styles, adolescents’ career motivation, career planning and perceived self-efficacy, and how these in turn affect their career wellbeing. The theories of self-determination, future orientation, and career construction justified this study’s mixed-methods approach, which involved quantitative self-report questionnaires and one-on-one interviews among senior secondary school students in public and private secondary schools in Nigeria. The aim on one hand was to test the theoretical assumption that adolescents’ career wellbeing is impacted by specific kinds of influence from parents and teachers on their career motivation, career exploration, and academic self-efficacy and on the other hand, to specify whether adolescents consider their career aspirations an important aspect of their identity, are knowledgeable about their chosen careers, and the nature of perceived barriers to their career choices. This study found that adolescents experience career wellbeing, measured as a high level of vocational identity and satisfaction with career choice when they express intrinsic and autonomous extrinsic motivation to choose their careers, engage in in-depth career exploration, and have positive self-evaluation beliefs. These intrapersonal antecedents of career wellbeing are however impacted by parents’ and teachers’ autonomy and emotional support in the career decision making and planning process of adolescents. This study unified elements of the quantitative and qualitative literature on adolescents’ career development and proposed a suitable framework for investigating the career decision making of adolescents in an understudied region like Nigeria.