Career Construction Networks Among Junior and Senior High School Students

Abstract

Although career construction theory has been utilized to understand how to construct the career process, it remains unclear how the various factors involved in this process interact comprehensively. In this study, we introduced the career construction network to explore the career development of junior high school students ( N = 372) and senior high school students ( N = 516) and its influencing factors, and investigated the adaptive readiness, adaptability resources, adapting responses, adaptation results and environmental factors within the network. The results showed that hope and proactive personality occupied influential positions in the network of junior high school students; hope exhibited the highest values of strength and closeness in the senior high school student sample; parental career-related behaviors, as the environmental factors, were located in the peripheral clusters of the two networks. In conclusion, this study provides insights and targeted intervention suggestions for adolescent career training methods.