Abstract:

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the global digitalization of institutions has significantly accelerated, resulting in many people losing their jobs. Additionally, those at the beginning of their careers and at universities, are quite indecisive, mentioning their unpreparedness to embrace new emerging digital technologies, which transform behaviors, attitudes, lifestyles, workplaces, work requirements, work patterns, work strategies, salaries, social lives, and well-being. Undoubtedly, these changes will open new opportunities, constituting the future of the work. However, given all these disruptive transformations, the most important shortfall is reflected in the lack of information about the self in career decisions.

Hence, in this study, the lack of information about the self in career decisions is studied among university students in Turkey. By taking into account the two types of difficulties in career decision-making — indecision and indecisiveness — four types of self-evaluation are studied by conducting qualitative research from the following standpoints: generalized self-efficacy, process-related self-efficacy, content-related self-efficacy, and self-esteem. Data were collected from semi-structured questionnaires to critically analyze how the lack of information about the self impacts the career decisions of university students (24). After clustering the data, the research questions are analyzed using NVivo.

The analyses conducted on data from four different sub-themes – generalized self-efficacy, process-related self-efficacy, content-related self-efficacy, and self-esteem – have shown that the lack of generalized self-efficacy among university students revealed stronger negative associations with career indecision. In other words, those who have low levels of generalized self-efficacy are correlated with negative emotions, optimism, and work satisfaction. They also negatively correlate with stress, depression, dissatisfaction, unhappiness, burnout, and, more importantly, anxiety. Therefore, the lack of information from the perspective of generalized self-efficacy is the worst when making decisions about their career. The second worst correlation is observed in process-related self-efficacy, which is related to process management and a likely predictor of how well an individual manages processes from start to finish. The lack of information about these two worsens university students’ decisions. However, students’ self-esteem has shown stronger negative associations with indecisiveness than career indecision. Furthermore, lack of information impacts content-related self-efficacy to a lesser extent.

As a result, participants in this research study critically show that generalized self-efficacy, process-related self-efficacy, and self-esteem are so interconnected and correlated that they must be improved in students’ career decisions. Content-related self-efficacy, or self-esteem, is the knowledge needed after making career-related decisions. Therefore, students can have behavioral intentions and attitudes toward their careers

Keywords:

Self, Career Decisions, University Students, Career Offices, Higher Education, Self-efficacy, Self-esteem.