Decision Self-Efficacy, Parenting Styles and Proactive Personality among University Students

Abstract

University students face many challenges including career decision-making. Career decision making is said to be aided through self-efficacy which correlates with parenting styles and proactive personality. Hence, for determining a university student’s career decision self-efficacy, studying their parenting styles and proactivity was of utmost importance. This current study aimed to investigate the relationship between career decision self-efficacy, parenting styles and proactive personality among university students. A sample of 345 students was collected through convenient sampling from private and semi-government universities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. To assess the study variables, the instruments that we used in our study included Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ) by John R. Buri (1991), Proactive Personality Scale (PPS) by Bateman and Crant (1993) and Career Decision Self-Efficacy- Short Form (CDSE-SF) by Betz and Taylor (2006). The results of present study supported our hypothesis that a relationship will exists between the study variables. Similarly, the second hypothesis was also approved as the finding revealed that parenting styles impact proactive personality and career decision self-efficacy. The third hypothesis was also supported by the results which state that proactive personality has a significant impact on career decision self-efficacy. Moreover, findings revealed that the most significant difference between males (M= 32.27, SD=7.82; p<0.05) and females (M=29.93, SD= 8.17; p< 0.05) was in the mother’s authoritarian parenting style which partially supports our final hypothesis. These results suggests that mothers are more authoritarian with males than females. Furthermore, this study has notable implications, especially with reference to parenting styles. For instance, the parenting style that yields most positive impact on child can be adopted.