Abstract
M.Ed. (Educational Psychology)
The world of work is changing in ways we could not have imagined, with technological developments creating brand new industries and jobs. We are also a part of an uncertain and unpredictable job market, where one has to not only make due to career planning, but also exhaustive career research before making a career choice. Since the career landscape has changed, it is no longer only the task of school leavers and entry level students to consider future study, but also a pertinent one for final year university students who have to decide on their future career plans. With this in mind, the objective of this study was to explore the level of depression and the career planning challenges of the third year BA students at the University in Gauteng. These challenges were analyzed with reference to career and personal counselling themes. From here, suitable recommendations for student counselling at the University were made.
A mixed method study was conducted with third year BA students who were a part of a non-career orientated degree/course and who had Sociology as a common subject. The reason for this was, according to researchers, those students especially in the ‘general subject’ (i.e. sociology, psychology, anthropology, history, etc) degrees, are suddenly confronted during their third year with difficult decisions about their future and career planning. Data was obtained quantitatively in the form of the Career Development Questionnaire (CDQ), in order to assess the student’s state of career maturity which is important in the process of career guidance and planning. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) was utilized for this research purpose as it could depict the level of depression that the third year BA students currently feel over there career planning for 2011. This data was qualitatively analyzed.
Data was also obtained qualitatively in the form of in-depth interviews held with the students in order to explore what are their career planning challenges once they have completed their degree.
The raw data was reduced according to the mixed method research data reduction process and consolidated and interpreted within boundaries of a theoretical framework.