VOCATIONAL INTEREST AND CAREER CHOICE OF SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS FOR JOB CREATION IN ZING EDUCATION ZONE, TARABA STATE NIGERIA

Abstract

The study investigated the Vocational Interest and Career Choice of Senior Secondary School Students for Job Creation in Zing Education Zone, Taraba State Nigeria. Two research questions guided the study while three null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study consisted800 senior secondary school students (SS II and SS III) in zing education zone of Taraba State. A stratified random sampling technique was used to select 160 students representing 20% of the population. The instrument used for data collection was a structured questionnaire titled “Vocational Interest and Career Choice Questionnaire” (VICCQ) adapted from Bakare (1977). The face and content validity of the instrument was determined by three experts. While Cronbach alpha reliability method was used to determine the internal consistency of the items and a coefficient of 0.83was obtained. Frequency counts and percentages were used to answer the research questions while, Pearson product moment correlation coefficient and t-test were used to test the null hypotheses raised in the study at 0.05 level of significance. The results of the study revealed that, there was a significant relationship between vocational interest and career choice of senior secondary school students. The finding also revealed that there was a significant difference in vocational interest and Career Choice between male and female students in Zing education zone of Taraba State, Nigeria. Based on these findings it was recommended that vocational scholars should always take into cognisant students’ vocational aspiration and career choice in decision making. Counsellors should use vocational inventories on students’ career choice in order to have proper placement.