The impact of parental influences on college students’ occupational identity development: The case of Singaporean college students in the U.S.

Background Although a better understanding of parental influences on college students’ occupational identity development (OID) and ultimate career choice(s) can help HRD personnel (including college counselors) provide more relevant and effective career-choice information when advising students, parental influence itself varies by many factors, including culture of origin. Accordingly, this study moves beyond conventional stereotypes depicting overbearing Asian parent-student career-decision dynamics to qualitatively explore junior- and senior-year Singaporean college students’ perceptions of parental influence on their career choice (s).. Methods Specifically, this study employs in-depth interviews to explore how Singaporean college students studying in the US viewed the career development activities of their youth, and to what extent those experiences and their parents had influenced their current career decisions and development path. Additionally, the study also offers a novel methodological approach that combines the occupational identity development (OID) and social cognitive career theory (SCCT) frameworks. This was necessary both to afford sufficient explanatory power during data analysis and to explore how parental influence interacts through OID and SCCT around career decision-making among Singaporean college students studying in the United States. Findings Along with the specific findings (below), the hybrid framework used in this study represents a significant contribution to and for HRD research. With respect to early career decision-making, the study found that only 3 of 15 participants reported career development activities in their youth, with 12 of 15 reporting virtually no data (even after prompting). This contradicts research that locates the arc of career development in early life. Instead, parental influences arose more often in contexts closer to college and for specific college plans for majors or careers. For the interaction between OID and SCCT, the three main findings include (1) an identifiable inverse relationship between agentic proxy and collaborative agency in parental involvement in the career decision-making process, (2) considerable strength of individual interests for honing the career decisions of participants (often in direct conflict with parental expectations), and (3) significant occupational customization (or dual career interests) in families with collaborative/hybrid parenting styles. Finding (1) is intuitive and predictable, i.e., where proxy agency (those influences exercised over the individual by others) is less present, there is an increased presence of collaborative agency (those influences generated by the mutual work and agenda of the individual and those around him towards a particular goal or desired outcome) between students and parents. Parenting style may play a role in this. Findings (2) and (3) more directly contradict stereotypical “Asian” parent-student career choice dynamics. Ultimately, it is the student who executes the choice of career, not simply because they must actually do the work of a career or because if parents excessively harp on what their children should do, this will likely end finally in complete disassociation. Rather, parental voices for “good careers” (in contrast to the student’s desires toward what they want to do) are, in some ways, simply the voices of the social world itself (which students will hear from many quarters, not just parents). This can result in compromise careers, whereby students identify work that might not pay as well as “good jobs” but is still fulfilling. Conclusion Future studies would benefit from combining “cross-sectional” and “longitudinal” HRD research and frameworks, especially around motivations (or perceptions of motivations) among students and parents. Redoing parenting style frameworks starting with “collectivist” culture parenting assumptions would also be beneficial. Better understanding these factors, especially when career advising students from collectivist cultures who navigate parental influences differently than students from non-collectivist cultures, will lead to better outcomes. This is because career advocacy can adopt and adapt those navigational differences when trying to show an open career pathway for students, when attempting to steer students towards emerging tech sectors, or for HRD practice generally, especially in work-sectors where large numbers of graduated students from collectivist cultures are already present.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Chen, Danying

Contributors dc:contributor

• Huang, Wenhao David
• Makela, Julia
• Oh, EunJung Grace
• Witt, Allison

• Career development
• human resource development
• occupational identity development
• parental influences
• social cognitive career theory
• sociocultural influences
• collectivist cultures
• individualist cultures.

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Danying Chen

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115369

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F115369