The Role of Career Self-Efficacy on the Effect of Parental Career Behaviors on Career Exploration: A Study on School of Tourism and Hotel Management’ Students

1. Introduction

During adolescence, the preparation for adulthood includes becoming concerned about and forming plans for the future occupational life. Theories of adolescence regard the process of becoming aware of one's vocational interests and making educational and vocational choices as a major developmental task of adolescence in modern industrialized societies (Kracke, 1997: 341). Several theoretical models view career development as the result of not only intrapersonal processes but also contextually constructed processes and the family context is viewed as being highly significant for adolescents (Ginevra et al., 2015: 2). Research has suggested that the family environment is an important contextual factor that shapes the study-to-work transition or the formative stages of career development. Students seek parents' emotional and instrumental involvement for their personal growth and adaptation to their career. Having parental support provides resources necessary to enable career exploration and the confidence and motivation to pursue their career goals (Guan et al., 2016: 114-115). Career exploration is a critical process for child and adolescent development leading people toward suitable work and meaningful careers. Antecedents that are known to explain variance in career exploration are motivational factors, such as self-efficacy, career interests, and achievement-orientation as well as contextual factors, such as parental behaviors (Lee et al., 2016: 125,126). The exploration stage is a crucial period in career development. During this phase individuals initiate thoughts and behaviors that will likely lead to a future career choice (Bartley and Robitschek, 2000: 63). Parents, as primary sources of social support, influence young people’s career-related self-efficacy and outcome expectations, as well as the development of their career interests, intentions, and goals (Ginevra et al., 2015: 3). Career self-efficacy plays an important role in studying the career objectives of teenagers and young people and the peculiarities of their career choices. The indicator of career self-efficacy helps determining the behavior of an individual in different situations when planning his/her career. Career self-efficacy is confidence in one’s ability to perform the actions related to further career choices (Brusokas and Malinauskas, 2014: 212). Previous research has suggested that individuals' career exploration behavior correlates positively with their career self-efficacy and career growth/success (Li et al., 2015: 39). However, research has shown that youths' career development is influenced by parenting styles (Zhao et al., 2012: 620). Furthermore, recent researches have showed that these parental behaviors significantly predicted career exploration and career decision-making difficulties of adolescents, as well as the career self-efficacy of the university students (Guan et al., 2015: 96). In this context, it can be said that parental behaviors are considered as crucial which provide students some information related with their future career and facilitate their career choices and provide them to develop their career. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the effects of parental career behaviors on student’s career exploration and the mediating role of career self-efficacy between parental career behaviors and career exploration. In the literature, there are a few researches that show the relationship between parental career behaviors and career exploration. On the other hand, there is not any research existing in literature yet examining the relationships among parental career behaviors, career self-efficacy and career exploration on university students. Since the parental styles are considered as significant component on undergraduate students’ career exploration behaviors and career self-efficacy, this research is conducted on this population. Thus, this study aims to investigate the antecedents of career exploration of undergraduate students so it attempts to add contribution to the literature.

2. The Theoretical Framework and Research Hypotheses

2.1. Career Exploration

Traditionally, career exploration was most commonly associated with the school-to-work transition as a critical stage in an individual’s career development. More recently, scholars and practitioners have started to embrace the idea of career exploration as a lifelong pursuit occurring across life roles and as a means to cope with a variety of career transitions (Zikic and Hall, 2009: 181). Career exploration refers to individuals' activities of collecting and analyzing information on their personal characteristics, as well as information on jobs, organizations and occupations. By searching and processing career related information, individuals can better understand existing job opportunities and prepare themselves for the challenges in their career transitions (Li et all., 2015: 39). Career exploration is understood ‘‘as a process with critical lifelong and adaptive functions” rather than a stage in career development or decision making, which includes cognitive and attitudinal components, as well as planned and unplanned activities (Cheung and Arnold, 2010: 25). Career exploration is a complex psychological process of exploration of the self and of the external environment that ensures career adaptability and has a particular significance in transitional periods in which individuals are frequently challenged with new roles (Gamboa et al., 2013: 79). Career exploration includes activities of gathering information relevant to the career progress of the individual and contains self and environmental explorations. Self-exploration refers to the exploration of individuals’ own interests, values, and experiences in order to reflect on their career choice and to obtain a deeper understanding of them, whereas environmental exploration involves individuals’ investigation of various career choices and involves collecting information on jobs, organizations, occupations or industries that correlates with more well-informed career decisions (Sawitria and Dewia, 2015: 106). It has been established that both self-exploration and environment-exploration activities play important roles in helping individuals to identify suitable job opportunities, achieve better employment and cope with the difficulties and challenges in their career transitions (Guan et al., 2015: 96). Adolescence is an important period in the context of career development because it is the time when people prepare themselves for the world of work and develop a vocational identity. In the course of developing a vocational identity, children and adolescents learn about their personal characteristics like interests, values, and capabilities. They also contemplate on what occupations suit their personal characteristics based on direct and indirect search about the outer world, which is altogether regarded as career exploration (Lee et. al., 2016: 125). The exploration stage is a crucial period in career development. During this phase individuals initiate thoughts and behaviors that will likely lead to a future career choice. If individuals do not successfully complete the tasks of this stage, they may flounder when it comes time to enter and stabilize in an occupation (Bartley and Robitschek, 2000: 63).

2.2. Parental Career Behaviors and Career Self-Efficacy

Generally, parents’ involvement includes several roles such as communication between children, managing and organizing their time, and discussing school matters being active in school functions and etc. (Herlickson et al., 2009: 194). In addition parental behavior related with career is refers to parental support includes encouragement, instrumental assistance, modeling desired behaviors, and emotional backing of children’s (Sawitri et al., 2014: 553). Therefore, it can be said that parents are considered as primary sources of social support, young people’s career-related self-efficacy and outcome expectations of them, as well as the development of their career interests, intentions, and goals (Ginevra et al., 2015: 3). In other words, parental career behaviors are instrumental in career development, such as concern and encouragement, expectations, interest, aspiration and role modeling (Fisher and Padmawidjaja, 1999: 136). In literature, it is suggested that there are three themes of parenting style over the past 50 years. The first one represent the centrality of parental warmth and caring to children’s development, suggesting that the foundation for caregiving is love and affection; second theme is authoritarian parenting style which refers to setting clear and consistent expectations and limit setting to children and provide to internalization of rules thus facilitate development of their self-efficacy levels. A third one is addressed as autonomy support which includes providing freedom of expression or intrinsic motivation of their children’s. All of these themes can be traced in various forms across decades of research examining how parents relate to their children from preschool age to late adolescence (Skinner et al., 2005: 175). For example, in this study parenting styles are examined in three different perspectives which are labeled as support, interference and lack of engagement. Support style represents how parents encourage and give advice to their children about career choices, career opportunities and career related activities. Interference refers that parents tend to impose their ideas and thoughts toward to their children which are related with career and vocation choices. However, lack of engagement indicates that parents have uninterested attitudes about their children’s career related issues (Dietrich and Kracke, 2009: 113).

Existing research evidence suggests that parental support can bolster career decision-making self-efficacy and mitigate the impact of career-related challenges (Guan et al., 2016: 115). Social cognitive career theory (SCCT), which focuses on the role of parental support, proposes that the environmental support parents provide for their children can have both direct effects on career choice and indirect effects, as mediated through self-efficacy (Ginevra et all., 2015: 3). Youths' career development begins in the family context and parents play a very significant role during this process. Social cognitive career theory argues that external factors, such as parental attitudes, parenting styles and family environment, influence youths' career self-efficacy level (Zhao et al., 2012: 619-620). Career self-efficacy, can be defined as individual’s judgments of their abilities to perform career behaviors in relation to career development, choice, and adjustment. In addition, career self-efficacy provides important information relevant to understanding the complex career development process (Nasta, 2007: 5). For example career self-efficacy plays an important role in studying on the career objectives of teenagers and young people and the peculiarities of their career choices. However, career self-efficacy helps determining the behavior of individuals in different situations when planning their careers. That is to say, individual who have high self-efficacy in complex situations it helps them to overcome feelings of doubt, various unpleasant occurrences and conflicts (Brusokas and Malinauskas, 2014: 212). Therefore, it is possible to express that career self-efficacy also has positive correlates with a range of career maturity variables, including career attitude, career exploration and career decidedness and it is considered as an important motivational variable which influences the focus, initiation and persistence of behaviors, including career behaviors (Creed et al., 2007: 378).

3. Research Hypotheses

In recent years, it is seen that the core concepts of the 20th century career theories and vocational support techniques must be reformulated to fit the new working conditions due to the current insufficient approaches. In other words, 21st century theories considered careers as individual scripts rather than conceptualizing careers as a meta-narrative of stages. Accordingly, new theories and techniques emphasize individuals’ flexibility, adaptability, life-long learning, personal characteristics and exploration behaviors for the development of career (Tuna et al., 2014: 143). In this context, it can be said that the importance of career exploration has become more valued in recent years as the new directions of theory and researches have become prominent. Career exploration is now viewed as an essential part of career development process, and also it is considered as an important component in career decision-making (Nasta, 2007: 6-7). Due to the career exploration subject came into view as the individuals capacity to self-construct and self-determine their lives, both theorists and practitioners become concerned which factors can inhibit or facilitate career exploration process (Cheung and Arnold, 2010: 25). Therefore, it seen that researchers focus on various social and cultural factors which are expected to influence career exploration behaviors of individuals. It is suggested that from the social and environmental context immediate environment and parents may be effective on the individual career choices. As well as these factors, it is supposed that individual characteristics such as age, gender, specific talents, interests, values and personality types may affect career exploration levels of individuals (Zikic and Hall, 2009: 181). From the scope of antecedents of career exploration attitudes, it seen that there are some researches which have examined different components in the literature. For example, Hirsch et al. (2015) and Li et al. (2015) revealed that personality characteristics which refer to hope and big five personality types can be considered as the sources of career exploration of adolescents. Vignoli et al. (2005) studies asserted that adolescent’s anxiety levels and their parents’ attachment and parenting styles are significant predictors of the career exploration. However, Cheung and Arnold (2010) have suggested that university students’ achievement motivation types and perception of support related with career activities from their parents, teachers and peers can be considered as the antecedents of career exploration. On the other hand, Sawitri and Dewi (2014) found that university student’ career exploration levels are affected by the academic fit and congruence with their parents and also Guan et al. (2015) studies predicted that parental career behaviors are the determinant of both career adaptabilities and career exploration. From this point of view, in this research it is expected that from social context parental career behaviors and the scope of the individual antecedents’ career self-efficacy have influence on students’ career exploration levels and the following hypotheses are proposed:

• H₁: Parental support significantly influences intended-systematic exploration levels of students.
• H₂: Parental support significantly influences environment exploration levels of students.
• H₃: Parental support significantly influences self-exploration levels of students.
• H₄: Interference significantly influences intended-systematic exploration levels of students.
• H₅: Interference significantly influences environment exploration levels of students.
• H₆: Interference significantly influences self-exploration levels of students.
• H₇: Lack of engagement significantly influences intended-systematic exploration levels of students.
• H₈: Lack of engagement significantly influences environment exploration levels of students.
• H₉: Lack of engagement significantly influences self-exploration levels of students.
• H₁₀: Career self-efficacy significantly influences intended-systematic exploration levels of students.
• H₁₁: Career self-efficacy significantly influences environment exploration levels of students.
• H₁₂: Career self-efficacy significantly influences self-exploration levels of students.

In literature, when focusing on the role of parental behaviors for adolescents’ career development, it is seen that majority of studies have addressed parent–adolescent relationship, such as attachment, individuation, parenting styles and family climate were linked to more career exploration activities lead to higher career self-efficacy (Dietrich and Kracke, 2009: 110). For example Guan et al. (2016) studies suggested that parental support significant predictors of adolescents career decision making self-efficacy. In addition, Ginevra et al. (2015) indicated that adolescents career self-efficacy levels affected from the perfection of parental support in career development stage. Moreover it is seen that Roach (2010) studies emphasized that parental styles have been found to be associated with career self-efficacy. In this context, it is possible to express that parental career behaviors are considered as the antecedents of career self-efficacy levels of university students. On the other hand, it is expected that career self-efficacy has a mediating role in this study. Thus, following hypotheses are proposed:

• H₁₃: Parental support significantly influences career self-efficacy levels of students.
• H₁₄: Interference significantly influences career self-efficacy levels of students.
• H₁₅: Lack of engagement significantly influences career self-efficacy levels of students.
• H₁₆: Career self-efficacy has a mediating role on the relationship between parental support and career exploration levels of students.
• H₁₇: Career self-efficacy has a mediating role on the relationship between interference and career exploration levels of students.
• H₁₈: Career self-efficacy has a mediating role on the relationship between lack of engagement and career exploration levels of students.

4. Research Method

4.1.Sample and Procedures

The sample of the research was composed of eight tourism faculties and two of the tourism and management school from the different provinces of Turkey. The participants of the study consist of 406 students who have being education as a second class and above students that were determined via convenient sampling method. From the 550 questionnaires that have been sent out, 430 have been returned, representing a response rate of 78%. After elimination of cases having incomplete data and outliers 406 questionnaire (73%) have been accepted as valid and included in the evaluations. However, questionnaire survey method is used for data collection in this study. Questionnaire form contains three different measures related to research variables.

4.2. Measures

Measures used in the questionnaire forms have been adapted from the previous studies in the literature. All measures have been adapted to Turkish by the lecturers and pilot study has been conducted for the validity of these measures. Before the distribution of the survey to the actual sample, a pilot study was conducted in order to determine whether the questions had been understood properly and to check the reliability of the scales. As a result of the pilot study, some corrections have been conducted in the questionnaire forms. A Likert-type metric, that is, expressions with five intervals has been used for answers to the statements of survey. Anchored such; "1- strongly disagree, 2- disagree, 3- agree or not agree, 4- agree, 5-strongly agree". However, 9 demographic questions were asked in the questionnaire form. Firstly, all scales were subjected to the exploratory factor analyses to check the dimensions, and then confirmatory factor analyses were applied to all scales.

• Parental Career Behavior Scale: Students’ perception of parental career behaviors measured with 14 items which was taken from Dietrich and Kracke (2009) studies. Exploratory factor analysis using principal component analysis with varimax rotation was applied to the adapted scale to check the dimensions. As a result of the exploratory factor analysis data related to the parental career behavior variables, one item were removed from the analysis due to the factor loadings under 0.50 and three factor solutions; (support, interference and lack of engagement) were obtained per theoretical structure. Factor loadings of the items ranged from .70 to .87.

• Career Exploration: Students career exploration behaviors measured with 28 items which was developed by Stumpf et al., (1983). Exploratory factor analysis using principal component analysis with varimax rotation was applied to the adapted scale to check the dimensions. As a result of the varimax rotation of the data related to the career exploration variables, twelve items were removed from the analysis due to the factor loadings under 0.50 and three factor solutions; (environment exploration, self-exploration, intended-systematic exploration) were obtained per theoretical structure. Factor loadings of the items ranged from .54 to .80.

• Career Self-Efficacy Scale: Students career self-efficacy levels were measured with 11 items which was taken from Kossek et al., (1998) studies. As a result of the exploratory factor analysis of the data related to the career self-efficacy variables, five items were removed from the analysis due to the factor loadings under 0.50 and one factor solution obtained per theoretical structure. Factor loadings of the item ranged from .68 to .86.

After the exploratory factor analyses, the confirmatory factor analysis has been conducted by Lisrel 8.8 for all scales. Goodness of fit indexes is presented in Table 2. It can be seen that all of the fit indexes fall within the acceptable ranges (Schermelleh-Engel et al., 2003: 52; Meydan and Şeşen, 2011: 35).

Table 1: Results of Exploratory and Reliability Analysis

Table 2. Goodness of fit indexes of the scales

Data Analysis

SPSS for Windows 20.0 and Lisrel 8.80 programs were used to analyze the obtained data. After the exploratory and confirmatory analysis, descriptive statistics such as means, standard deviations and pearson correlation analysis of the study variables were examined. Following that, structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to conduct a test of the hypotheses in the research model.

5. Research Findings

5.1. Respondent Profile

51% of the students were female and the 49% of them male. Majority of the students (77%) were between the ages 19-23, 23% of them above than 23. 42% of the students have an education in accommodation management programs, 25% of them in gastronomy and culinary arts, 24% of them in travel management, 9% of them in tourist guide bachelor’s degree programs. However, majority of the students (80%) indicated that they have chosen tourism and hotel management school and tourism faculties willingly. In addition, most of the students (65%) are planning to work in the tourism industry when they have graduated, whereas 35% of them are not planning to work in the tourism industry. On the other hand, it is seen that majority of the students (94%) parents are alive and (84%) of them parents are together. 54% of the student’s only father working, 27% of them both fathers and mothers are working and 19% of them parents have retired.

5.2. Descriptive Analyses

In the scope of the descriptive analyses means, standard deviations and correlations have been conducted which are related to parental career behaviors, career exploration and career self-efficacy levels of student. The values are given in Table 3.

Table 3. Means, standard deviations and correlations of the study variables

**p<0.01

As can be seen in Table 2, parental career behaviors dimension of support was positively related to students intended-systematic exploration (r=.515, p<0.01); environment exploration (r=.422, p<0.01) and self-exploration (r=.562, p<0.01). Interference dimension was positively related to students self-exploration (r=.122, p<0.05) while lack of engagement dimension were negatively related to students intended-systematic exploration (r=-.200, p<0.01) and self-exploration levels (r=-.164, p<0.05). In addition, while parental career behaviors support dimension was positively related to students (r=.110, p<0.05) career self-efficacy levels; interference (r=-.220, p<0.01) and lack of engagement (r=-.398, p<0.01) dimensions were negatively related to students career self-efficacy levels. However, one of the dimension of career exploration which is labeled as an intended-systematic exploration was positively related to students (r=.178, p<0.01) career self-efficacy levels. On the other hand, it is seen employees’ self-exploration and intended-systematic exploration levels and the perception of parental support levels relatively high.

5.3. Measurement Model

For the verification of the model two step approach by Anderson and Gerbing (1988) has been used. According to this approach, prior to testing the hypothesized structural model, first the research model needs to be tested to reach a sufficient goodness of fit indexes. After obtaining acceptable indexes it can be proceed with structural model. As a result of the measurement model, 7 latent and 35 observed variables were found. Observed variables were consist of 14 items related to parental career behaviors, 15 items related to career exploration and 6 items related to career self-efficacy. The results of the measurement model were; x²: 864.23; df: 501; x²/ df; 1.72; RMSEA: 0.042; GFI: 0.89; IFI: 0.98; CFI: 0.98; NFI: 0.96; NNFI: 0.98. These values indicate that measurement model has been acceptable (Schermelleh-Engel et al., 2003: 52; Meydan and Şeşen, 2011: 37).

5.4. Structural Equation Model

After the measurement model was demonstrated as acceptable, the structural equation model was applied to verify hypotheses for the causal relationships in the research model. The results of the structural equation model were; x²: 1171.38; df: 505; x²/df: 2.31; RMSEA: 0.057; CFI: 0.97; IFI: 0.97; NFI: 0.94; NNFI: 0.96. These results indicate that structural model has been acceptable (Schermelleh-Engel et al., 2003: 52; Meydan and Şeşen, 2011: 37).

According to the results of structural equation model, the path parameter and significance levels show that parental career behaviors dimensions which are labeled as support (γ=0.77; t-value=11.01), lack of engagement (γ=0.21; t-value=3.37) and interference (γ=0.20; t-value=3.67) have positive and significant effect on students intended-systematic career exploration behaviors; so H₁, H₄ and H₇ hypotheses were supported. However, parental support (γ=0.74; t-value=10.90), interference (γ=0.12; t-value=2.21) and lack of engagement (γ=0.24; t-value=3.77) have positive and significant effect on students environment exploration, thus H₂, H₅ and H₈ hypotheses were supported. In addition, it is found out that parental support (γ=0.80; t-value=12.95), lack of engagement (γ=0.16; t-value=2.91) and interference (γ=0.21; t-value=4.10) have positive and significant effect on self-exploration behaviors of students, so H₃, H₆ and H₉ hypotheses were supported. These results indicated that parental career behaviors such as support, lack of engagement and interference lead students to exhibit intended-systematic and self-exploration career attitudes. In this context, it can be said that supporting parental behaviors represent positive attitude towards to the children and facilitate them to form their career choices, career paths and etc. On the other hand, lack of engagement and interference indicating unfavorable attitudes lead to some positive consequences in terms of career-exploration. Therefore, it is possible to express that even though lack of engagement and interference are unfavorable, they lead students to more interest in their career related activities. Moreover, parental career behaviors dimensions such as support (γ=-0.07; t-value=-1.13) and interference (γ=-0.12; t-value=-1.92) have no significant effect on students career self-efficacy levels, so H₁₃ and H₁₄ hypotheses were not supported, while lack of engagement (γ=-0.44; t-value=-6.09) has negative and significant effect on students career self-efficacy levels, thus H₁₅ hypothesis was supported. In this regard, it is possible to express that only one of the dimension of parental career behaviors which is called as a lack of engagement affects students career self-efficacy levels. In other words, parents lack of engagement towards to the children may lead to their career self-efficacy levels decreased. According to the results, it is found that career self-efficacy levels of students have positive effect (γ=0.29; t-value=4.84) on intended-systematic and self-exploration (γ=0.11; t-value=2.28) career behaviors, so H₁₀ and H₁₂ hypotheses were supported but career self-efficacy levels has no significant effects on (γ=0.08; t-value=1.65) enviroment exploration of students, H₁₁ hypothesis was not supported. In addition to them, Baron and Kenny (1986) approach was used for testing mediating effect of career self-efficacy. Related to this approach, following conditions were used for the mediation analysis (Baron and Kenny, 1986):

1. There is a significant relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable (parental career behaviors and career exploration)
2. There is a significant relationship between the independent variable and the mediator variable (parental career behaviors and career self-efficacy
3. There is a significant relationship between the dependent variable and the mediator variable (career self-efficacy and career exploration)

After the SEM tested in accordance with the Baron and Kenny (1986) approach, structural equation model showed that career self-efficacy has a partially mediator role between the relationships of lack of engagement dimension of parental career behaviors and intended-systematic career exploration behaviors, thus H₁₈ hypothesis was partially supported. In this context, it is possible to express that student who perceives unfavorable attitudes that shows lack of engagement from their parents, tend to exhibit intended-systematic career exploration behaviors but if they possess a career self-efficacy at the same time, their exhibition levels of intended-systematic career exploration are affected positively. In other words, career self-efficacy increases their intended-systematic career exploration behaviors even though they perceive lack of engagement. However, it is seen that career self-efficacy has a partially mediator role between the relationships of lack of engagement dimension of parental career behaviors and self-exploration behaviors. Therefore, it can be said that students who perceive unfavorable attitudes that shows lack of engagement from their parents, tend to exhibit self-exploration behaviors but if they possesses a career self-efficacy at the same time, their exhibition levels of self- exploration are affected positively. On the other hand, parental support and interference dimensions have no significant effect on career self-efficacy levels of students, the conditions of Baron and Kenny approaches were not provided so career self-efficacy’s mediating effect was not questioned, which implies that H₁₆ and H₁₇ hypothesis was not supported.

Table 4. Summary of Hypotheses Results

6. Conclusion

In the current era, due to the emerging of social and technological changes in working world, it is seen that the ability of adolescents’ to seek career opportunities, to recognize their concerns and interests related with their career have become an important topic. In other words, today’s working conditions requires adolescents to have flexibility, adaptability, life-long learning approaches, possess specific personality characteristics and tend to exhibit exploration behaviors for the development of their career. Career exploration considered as one of the important activities which refers to adolescents’' collecting and analyzing information on jobs, organizations, occupations and themselves. These activities facilitate adolescents to recognize existing job opportunities, prepare them for the future career transitions and provide their adaptability towards to the unpredictable conditions. In addition, by the career exploration behaviors, adolescents can be aware of their weakness, goals, strengths, interests, desires and opportunities. Therefore, it can be said that career exploration are considered vital component for young adolescents’ career planning, career decidedness and career development process. However, there is a growing question about what lead or trigger adolescents to exhibit career exploration behaviors. In literature, it is seen that researchers focus on various individual, social and cultural factors which are expected to influence career exploration behaviors of university students. For example, these studies suggested that adolescent’s age, gender, abilities, competencies; interest and personality characteristics can be considered effective factors on their career exploration activities. On the other hand, it is expected that adolescent’s immediate environment, parents attitudes and behaviors have significant effect on their career exploration levels. Particularly, it is seen that parental and family factors have become an important component for the adolescent success, academic achievement, academic engagement, career choices and career development stages. These factors include family characteristics such as socioeconomic status, family structure, parents’ demographic traits and parental education, parenting styles etc.

Parenting styles which refers to the attitudes and behaviors of parents towards to the children’s are considered as crucial for the university students career development process. Parenting styles shows the role modeling manner of parents that are expected to be effective on students career concern, career interest, career aspiration, and career self-efficacy and career exploration levels. Due to the parenting styles have accepted by the researchers as a social antecedent which is possible to affect or trigger young adult’s career exploration attitudes and their career self-efficacy levels, it is seen that investigating these factors role important. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate some individual and social antecedents of university students’ career exploration attitudes. From the individual perspective career self-efficacy is examined as one of the specific personality trait which is expected to effect of career exploration levels of university students’. On the other hand, parental career behaviors have been included in this study within the scope of social antecedents. As a result of the research findings, it has been obtained that parental support which indicates the positive dimension of parental career behaviors positively affects the students’ intended-systematic career exploration, environment career exploration and self-career exploration levels, thus H1_, H₂, and H₃ hypotheses were supported. In addition, the other dimensions that represent the negative aspect of parental career behaviors which are labeled as interference and lack of engagement have both positive effect on student’s intended-systematic career exploration, environment career exploration and self-career exploration levels so; H₄, H₅ , H₆ H₇, H₈, H₉ hypotheses were supported. Therefore, all parental career behaviors can be considered as an individual antecedent of career exploration levels of students within the scope of the universities. In this context, it is possible to express that parental career behaviors which includes both positive and negative aspects although facilitates students setting specific career goals for themselves, lead them to recognize career opportunities, aware of their abilities, weakness and strengths and increase of their career decidedness.

According to the results of the study, career self-efficacy was examined as an individual antecedent of career exploration of university students and it has been found that career exploration dimensions of intended-systematic career exploration and self-exploration were affected positively by the career self-efficacy, thus H₁₀ and H₁₂ hypotheses were supported. From these results, it can be inferred that due to the students have possess career self-efficacy, it is expected them to more concerned with the career related activities. However, it can be said that career self-efficacy lead students to explore themselves and the career opportunities effectively. On the other hand, research results revealed that parental career behaviors one of the dimension which is labeled as a lack of engagement affect students career self-efficacy levels negatively, so H₁₅ hypothesis was supported, while interference and parental support dimensions have no significant effect on career exploration thus H₁₃ and H₁₄ hypotheses were not supported. Therefore, students’ career self-efficacy levels which represent their confidence, decidedness and having responsibilities related with their future career choices can be affected positively by the parents’ negative attitudes within the scope of this research. In this regard, it can be said that parents attitudes like lack of engagement to their children’s may lead creating adverse effect on their attitudes related with career activities. For example, due to the ignorance of their parents, students go into the career activities wholeheartedly. Based on the findings, it has been obtained that career self-efficacy mediates the effect of parental career behaviors on students’ career exploration so H₁₈ hypotheses partially was supported. According to these results, it is expected that students although perceive lack of engagement from their parents, due to the possess career self-efficacy at the same time, their willingness tend to participate career related activities can be increased. Therefore, career self-efficacy has a partially mediating role which increases the students career exploration levels even though they believe that their parents disregard themselves. Concordantly, the research results indicate that perception of parental career behaviors and the students’ career self-efficacy levels which are considered in scope of the antecedents have significant effect on students’ career exploration levels.

In the literature, there are some studies related to individual, social and cultural antecedents of students’ career exploration. However, it is seen that studies on parental career behaviors and career exploration are relatively scant on the university students. Therefore, this study aims to add several contributions to the theory by exploring the relationships among these variables and determining the antecedents of career exploration. Moreover, this study reveals the importance of career exploration attitudes of the university students and it shows which factors can be considered to provide students to more concern with career related activities. The results of the study are significant for the education of the university students in terms of emphasizing the role of parental career behaviors and career related behaviors. Since the career exploration and career self-efficacy play important roles for students to recognize job and career opportunities, and awake their positive and negative aspects or what they want to do in the future, it is needed to consider parental effects. In this context, it can be said that parents have to be interested in their child’s education and career development process and help them increasing of their self-efficacy levels. This study had some limitations. First, data was gathered only eight faculties and two of the tourism and management school in some of the cities of Turkey. Therefore, the results of this study cannot be judged to be representative of all universities of Turkey. Second, the results are based on the perception of only the students who had a vocational education in tourism field. For future studies, it is recommended that the research model can be tested different samples that have different vocational education. In addition, the research model can be designed by adding some individual variables of students like personality, self-esteem, achievement orientation and some demographic variables such as gender, age, education grade or etc. In addition, from the social and cultural perspective students living place, income status of family, family togetherness and ethical values of family may be examined in the future studies.

References