The effect of vocational motivation of secondary school students getting food and beverage services education on their career intentions

Education is the development of an individual in many subjects in terms of knowledge, experience and equipment and shaping their life. Individuals develop themselves with the education they receive while determining their future and make their professional choices accordingly. Each individual should make their career planning with their own interests, talents and characteristic elements. The main purpose of vocational education is to enable individuals to make their career choices in these directions. Individuals who make a career choice according to their own qualifications will receive education from these education areas and shape their lives as the first step of the career planning step. Individuals who will make their career planning correctly will have very high professional motivation and strong opportunities for advancement in their professions. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the professional motivations of individuals who receive education in the field of gastronomy and to examine how they shape their career intentions with this motivation. The field of gastronomy is a scientific discipline that has been constantly developing from the past to the present, has been built on more modern foundations today, and not only meets the need for food and drink, but also includes various artistic activities, and is not only about the stomach-filling nature of eating and drinking, but also about the nutritional values of the food served, color and harmony, and studies are carried out on many points to store food safely before serving, and is tried to be developed in line with all these. In the light of all these, the education given to individuals who want to choose this profession starts from the secondary education level and continues with higher education. The education given to individuals who choose this field is carried out in line with certain curricula and practices, and efforts are made to shed light on individuals' career intentions. In this study, the perspectives of gastronomy students who choose this field towards the profession were discussed, the level of their professional motivation was tried to be evaluated with a survey study, and the relationship between their motivation level and their career intentions was evaluated. According to the survey study; it is observed that the number of participants who love the profession of cooking is quite low. The main reason for this is that the students encounter negative factors quite a lot during the education they receive or the internship they do. The pleasure and happiness rates of the participants who are doing the cooking profession while practicing their profession have been evaluated and it is observed that the majority of the participants do not enjoy their jobs and are not happy. The answers given by the majority of the participants who were asked whether they will do the cooking profession permanently are evaluated as they do not want to do the profession permanently. It is observed that the participants' professional motivation is low and they do not think of continuing their career intentions in this direction. Although the field of gastronomy is a developing field, it is observed that the fact that this field is a labor-intensive sector, the heavy working conditions, the few chefs who know and apply the qualities of the job in the necessary ways and the effort to reduce the professional motivation of young people who are still at the beginning of the profession instead of keeping it high does not allow the sector to train qualified personnel yet