The purpose of the research is to explore "career decision making process" of college students who changed their majors by qualitative method. The researcher intends to understand factors influence subjects´ career decision making process, adjustment and future career development. Through pilot study, the research questions and directions were clarified and focused. Then, eleven college students who changed their major were chosen to be the samples based on maximum variation sampling, purpose sampling and snowball sampling. Several in-depth interviews were used to collect data to understand what subjects´ thoughts and their meaningful inner world deeply. Qualitative analyses of the interviews were applied. And the results of the analyses are as follows:
1. Factors that influence college students to change their majors include interest, aptitude and ability, diploma, social value orientation, self-esteem need, escape from predicament, family factors, chance of trying, and economic factors. Another two factors, "religion" and "pursuing the knowledge", are essential findings of this research.
2. Twelve influential factors of the career decision making process are "interest", "decisionmaking style", "career information", "vocational values", "general values", "self image", "religion", "barriers", "past experiences", "occupational prestige", "learning experiences", and "career beliefs". Those factors can be classified into six categories: "personal traits", "skills of career decision making", "cognitive structure", "mystic experiences", "environment", and "learning experiences".
3. Students who have better academic performance and life adjustment are those who (1) change to the same background departments which are congruent with their aptitudes, and (2) have initiative and active personalities. On the contrary, students who have bad academic performance and life adjustment are those who (1) change to the departments which are either very different from their initial backgrounds or not congruent with their aptitudes, and (2) have passive and introvert personalities which will often result in being lonely and lacking the opportunity of interpersonal interaction.
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A Qualitative Research of Career Decision Making Process of College Students Who Changed Their Majors
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