Investigating relationships between career decision-making difficulties, perceived parental career related support, perceived competence, and future expectation with structural equation modeling on high school students

The purpose of this study was to test a structural equation model that examining the mediating role of future expectations in the relationship between high school students' perceived competence and their career decision making difficulties, and also to examine the moderating role of career related parenting styles on the structural equation model. The sample of this study was composed of 568 high school students. "Emotional and Personality Related Career Decision-Making Difficulties Scale- Short Form" , "Perceived Competence Scale" , "Future Expectations Scale" , "Perceived Parental Career Related Support Scale -Turkish Form" and "Personal Information Form" were used in data collection. The structural equation model results indicated that future expectations mediated the relationship between the perceived competence and career decision making difficulties. The model proposed in this study explains 10% of the total variance of career decision making difficulties. Another result obtained in the research reveals that the mediating effect in the model changes according to parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, inadequate). Partial mediation effect was observed in the authoritative parent group, full mediation effect was observed in the authoritarian parent group, and it was concluded that the model did not work in the inadequate parent group. These results are also consistent with the Social Cognitive Career Theory, which suggests that social supports affect both self-efficacy beliefs and directly to career choice. The findings of the study were discussed in the light of relevant literature, and some suggestions were submitted for the following studies, future researchers and practitioners.