Abstract
M.A.
The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of the South African post-matric
programmes on career maturity and self-efficacy. The research design employed in
order to measure this impact was a non-equivalent three group, pre-posttest design
within a quasi-experiment. Post-matric students in the experimental group were
taken from nine independent schools in South Africa. Two control groups were used,
one consisting of matriculation students and the other of first year university students.
Post-matric is an additional year of schooling aimed at bridging the gap between
school and university. The difficulties experienced by young people during this
school to work transition and the main reasons for students partaking in post-matric
programmes are presented.
In order to comprehensively outline the construct career maturity, the theories of
three authors, namely, Donald Super, John Crites and Ronelle Langley, are discussed.
The construct self-efficacy is also fully outlined with a theoretical exposition of the
work of Albert Bandura, John Krumboltz and Nancy Betz.
Measurement instruments used in this study are a biographical questionnaire, the
Career Development Questionnaire (CDQ) and the Career Decision-Making Self-
Efficacy Scale (CDMSES). Various hypotheses were formulated and Hotelling's T 2-
tests, Students t-tests, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), univariate
analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the Scheffe test were used to test the hypotheses.
Results of these statistical tests showed that the three groups of participants started off
unequally with regard to the measures of career maturity and career decision-making
self-efficacy, but the two school groups improved to such an extent that their mean
scores on all scale variables compared favourably with those of the university group
at the end of the study. It is especially the career maturity and career decisionmaking
self-efficacy of the post-matric students that improved significantly within the
nine month period during which the post-matric programmes were implemented.
This finding reflects positively on the impact of the post-matric programmes. As the CDMSES is an overseas research instrument being used extensively in South
Africa for the first time in this research, certain statistical procedures were carried out
in order to highlight its psychometric properties. Of particular interest is the finding
that in South Africa the CDMSES measured only one factor which can be named as
Forethought with regard to Career Knowledge.
In conclusion it is recommended that full use be made in educational institutions of
the measurement instruments used in this study as diagnostic aids to enhance the
effectiveness of career counselling. It is also recommended that further research in
this topic be carried out on the broader community in South Africa.