Career Decision-making of Adolescents in Relation to their Family Environment: An Empirical Study

The present study was attempted to find the relationship between career decision-making and family environment among adolescents. For the study, 300 adolescents studying in class XI were drawn from Government Model Senior Secondary Schools of Chandigarh by employing stratified random sampling. For the collection of data Career Decision-Making Inventory (CDMI; Singh, 1999) and Family Environment Scale (FES; Vohra, 1997) were administered to adolescents. For the analysis of data statistical techniques like Pearson product moment correlation, t-test and stepwise multiple regression were used. Correlation analysis showed that career decidedness was significantly and positively correlated with cohesion, expressiveness, independence and recreational orientation dimensions of family environment. Career indecision was significantly and negatively correlated with cohesion, expressiveness, independence, organization and recreational orientation dimensions of family environment. No significant gender difference was observed on the variables of career decision-making (career decidedness and career indecision). Boys and girls significantly differed only on organization dimension except all other dimensions of family environment. Regression analysis showed that cohesion and expressiveness dimensions of family environment contributed to career decidedness independently as well as conjointly. This indicated that adolescents having families high on cohesion and expressiveness were high on career decidedness. In case of career indecision, the predictors were expressiveness, organization and independence which contributed to career indecision independently as well as conjointly. This demonstrated that adolescents having families high on expressiveness, organization and independence were low on career indecision. Results of the present study demonstrated that congenial family environment is necessary for the overall development of adolescents.