The effect of parental attitudes on career maturity levels of students in tourism education at secondary education level

Profession, is the most crucial element in one's developing his or her capabilities, proving himself or herself and, more importantly, going on living. The job determination of an individual starts at secondary education period. This preference is correlated with the individual's level of professional maturity. The attitude of parents plays an important part in that individual's achieving this level of maturity. In this respect, the first goal of this study is to find out the relation between the branch preferences and professional competence levels of secondary tourism education students and the attitude of their families. Secondly, the relation between the attitude of parents with Professional maturity and branch preference will be found out. Quantitative approach was employed in the study. In the analysis of the data that were collected from 563 tourism students by means of questionnaire technique. In the analysis of the data, the percentage, frequency, standard deviation, arithmetic average, Chi square, Mann-Whitney U, Correlation and Regression techniques were employed. A meaningful and medium level relation was found out between the Professional maturity levels of the students and the attitudes of their parents. The increase in the level of democratic attitude of parents affected professional maturity level positively, while their tendency to have protective/demanding and authoritative attitudes affected it negatively. Keywords: Professional Maturity Level, Attitudes of Parents, Professional Preference, Vocational Tourism Education, Afyonkarahisar, Antalya.