The relationship between career anxiety, perfectionism, and self-esteem levels in high school students

The aim of this study is to examine the mediating role of self-esteem in the relationship between perfectionism and career anxiety among high school students. Additionally, the study investigates whether students' career anxiety varies based on gender, grade level, and perceived academic achievement. The participants consists of 561 students (girls:432, boys:129), aged between 14 and 18, studying in various high schools in Çorum, Turkey. The Career Anxiety Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and Child and Adolescent Perfectionism Scale were used as data collection tools. The relationships between variables were analyzed using the Pearson correlation coefficient. The mediating role of self-esteem in the relationship between perfectionism and career anxiety was tested using structural equation model which AMOS. The t-test was used to determine whether career anxiety differs according to gender. Whether career anxiety differed according to grade level and perceived academic achievement level was determined by ANOVA. Scheffe test was used to determine between which groups the differentiation found as a result of ANOVA was found. The analysis revealed that there was a positive significant relationship between career anxiety's sub-dimensions career-related anxiety and family influence and social-oriented perfectionism's sub-dimensions, while a negative relationship was established with the self-esteem variable. A significant negative relationship was also found between self-esteem and social-oriented perfectionism's sub-dimensions. The results of the mediation analysis indicated that self-esteem played a mediating role in the relationship between social-oriented perfectionism and the sub-dimensions of career anxiety (namely career-related anxiety and family influence). Furthermore, a partial mediating role of self-esteem was identified in the relationship between social-oriented perfectionism's sub-dimensions and career anxiety's sub-dimension of family influence. While students' career anxiety scores did not differ significantly by gender, they exhibited significant variations according to grade level and perceived academic achievement. Keywords: Career anxiety, perfectionism, self-esteem