关键词: 父母生涯相关行为, 专业满意度, 生涯适应力, 生涯规划, 学前教育专业大学生

Abstract: Major satisfaction is an important construct that contribute to undergraduates’career intention and selection. A large number of studies have demonstrated that individual career factors (e.g., career self-efficacy) have a close relationship with major satisfaction, only a small percentage of studies paid attention to the role of contextual factors. Based on career construction theory, career-specific parental behaviors may be antecedents of undergraduates’ major satisfaction. Further, career adaptability and career planning may act as mediating mechanism between these associations. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to get in-depth insights into the relationships between career-specific parental behaviors (i.e., parental support, parental interference, and the lack of parental career engagement) and major satisfaction of students majoring in preschool education, and to test the possible mediating roles of career adaptability and career planning. Six hundred students (97.7% female) majoring in preschool education aged 19-27 (Mage = 21.94) years old from one preschool education college in Yinchuan, Ningxia hui autonomous region were recruited for participation at time 1. Six months later (time 2), 431 of them (98.4% female, Mage = 21.77) took the second test. They were asked to complete a battery of self-report questionnaires, including the Perceived Parental Career-related Behaviors, Career Adapt-Abilities Scale-Short Form, Career Development Inventory at time 1, and Academic Major Satisfaction Scale at time 2. Firstly, descriptive statistics correlation analysis was utilized to describe the basic features of the variables. Then the hypotheses were evaluated by conducting path analysis with Mplus version 7.4. A correlation analysis showed that parental support was positively associated with career adaptability, career planning, and major satisfaction among students majoring in preschool education. Parental interference was negatively correlated with major satisfaction, but had no relationship with career adaptability and career planning. The lack of parental career engagement was negatively correlated with career planning and major satisfaction, but had no relationship with career adaptability. Career adaptability, career planning and major satisfaction were positively correlated with each other. The structure model results indicated that both parental support, parental interference, and the lack of parental career engagement did not directly predict students’ major satisfaction. Besides, parental support indirectly contributed to major satisfaction via career adaptability and career planning, receptively, and through the chained mediation path of career adaptability and career planning. Parental interference indirectly predicted major satisfaction via career adaptability, and through the chained mediation path of career adaptability and career planning. These findings suggested that it was meaningful to take into account parental career-related behaviors, career adaptability, and career planning when explaining major satisfaction of students majoring in preschool education. The important implication of this study is that parental support is a critical factor in promoting the career adaptability, career planning, and major satisfaction of students majoring in preschool education. In addition, parents should support and encourage their children to make career planning, so as to improve their career decision-making ability and career challenge coping ability in the future, and ultimately ing their major satisfaction at present.

Key words: parental career-related behaviors, major satisfaction, career adaptability, career planning, early childhood education students