Abstract:

Purpose:
The current study discusses findings from an exploratory research concerning the impact that numerous factors (such as parents, career counselors, mass media, friends, high school courses, working professionals, and students’ aspirations) have, on high school students’ choices for selecting University programs of study.
Globalization, economic, technological and demographic changes, tend to influence labour market developments, furthermore, today, students have a broad range of educational opportunities in higher education. However, the continuous growing developments in education and employment tend to increase the competition and the complexity of the labour market. Thus, students must be very selective and careful in choosing their programs of study. Their decision process is not an easy one. There exist numerous important factors which influence their decision.
This study’s objectives were to assess: the factors influencing students’ choices, and examine whether these factors had a positive or negative impact on students’ selections.

Design:
The snowball stratified sampling method was used; 20 public high school seniors participated in the study. Of the sample, 11 were females and 9 were males, additionally 12 lived in different cities and 8 in villages. Qualitative and quantitative research methodologies were used. Semi structured interviews were conducted and a survey instrument was administered. The analysis process for the interviews was done by using the qualitative software NVivo 9th Edition, and statistical analysis were conducted for the surveys by the use of the EXCEL.

Findings:
The results of the study provided a very good indication of the high levels of parental involvement in the students’ decision making as far as higher education choices are concerned, whereas the school career counselors’ role and influence ranged from minimal to nonexistent. The vast majority of the participants (75%) stated that they collectively decided, emphasizing that their parents had a facilitator’s role, and decisions were made by taking into consideration their children’s wishes. Furthermore, 20% of the participants stated that their parents acted as their career counselors and that they were greatly influenced by their parents’ preferences, who were the main decisions makers. Lastly 5% of the participants decided on their own with no interferences or pressure by their parents or career counselors.
Additionally, in prioritizing the factors that influence participants’ choices, on the top of the list is “my opinion and aspirations” (55%), “my family” (45%), followed by “ high school courses”, “friends”, “working professionals”, and last on the list were both “mass media” and the “school counselor”. Lastly several other contributing factors were students’ grade point average, parental occupation and career/vocational guidance testing.

Originality:
The paper contributed to the research on the career counseling processes of public high school seniors living in a country where similar research is limited and sporadic.

Keywords:

Students’ decisions for university programs, career counseling, parental roles in students’ selection of higher education.