The Path Analysis of Social Work Student's Career Choice Goal

Background:

Over 3,000 students graduate from social work departments per year in Taiwan; however, not everyone would choose social worker as their first careers. The low entrance rate into the career presents not only a waste for professional training but also leads to human-power shortage in social work profession. Therefore, it is eminent to explore factors that would influence social work students’ career choice goals. The purpose of this study is to examine factors that would predict career choice goal for being social workers among Taiwanese social work students, based on Lent’s Social Cognitive Career Theory.

Methods:

A quantitative approach of data collecting was used to examine if a career choice model was held to predict career choice for being social workers among social work students. A sample of 1,073 senior students from 20 universities in Taiwan were interviewed by a structured questionnaire. Following Lent’s theoretical thinking, a path model of five independent variables, such as self-efficacy, learning experience, social support, outcome expectation, and career interest, was constructed to examine their direct as well as indirect effects on career choice goal for being social workers among social work students. Using the package of SPSS Amos, path analyses was used to test the choice model.

Results:

The results indicated that Lent’s choice model fit the data well and generally supported the hypotheses. It showed that students’ social support from teachers and peers had direct effect toward their self-efficacy and outcome expectations for being social workers soon after their graduation. Also, their self-efficacy and outcome expectations jointly predicted their career interests and that their interests mediate the relations of self-efficacy and outcome expectations toward career choice goal. However, students’ self-efficacy, not as Lent’s model hypothesis of direct predicting, was related to career choice goal only in an indirect way, through their outcome expectations and interests. In contrast with self-efficacy, outcome expectations have direct path to career choice. In short, in model testing, students’ social support and learning experiences from school teachers and peers were essential to develop self-efficacy and outcome expectations, and then their outcome expectations and interests directly predicted if social work students would choose social worker as their career choices.

Implications:

In this study, vicarious learning or role modeling, such as gaining social support and learning experiences in school as well as in practicum cites are important to nurture social work students to develop their future professional careers. It is suggested that social work education, besides of knowledge transferring, should also provide students a supportive learning environment for students to explore and develop their career interests for being social workers. In practicum cites, professional social workers in agencies or organizations should present positive role modeling for students to map out a professional outcome expectation. Because today’s social work students will be tomorrow’s social workers, if they see a future of it.