Determinants of career choice among students in Public senior high schools in the Asikuma-Odobenbrakwa District

Abstract

The study examined the factors responsible for career choice among students of public senior high schools in Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa District. The descriptive design was employed for the study. The study used the purposive sampling technique to include 357 senior high students for the study. Closedended questionnaire with reliability co-efficient of 0.71 was used to collect data. Frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations were used for5 the data analysis. Findings from this study showed that environmental factors influenced career choice among senior high school students. Students reported that opportunities and self-knowledge influenced their career choice. It was found that environmental factors influenced choice of careers. Respondents mentioned that money had been an issue in choosing a career, their parents had great influence in their career choice and moving with students in tertiary institutions did affect their choice of career. It was concluded that counsellors at various senior high schools should sensitize students regarding solutions to challenges they faced when making career choices. It is recommended that school guidance counsellors need to develop effective and comprehensive guidance and counselling programme for schools. This would help students to know about the various career options available in order to and utilize them.