Career certainty and career decision-making self efficacy in postgraduate study intentions

Purpose: To determine the factors contributing to undergraduate business students' intentions to progress to postgraduate study. Originality: The study is distinct because it is one of the few rigorous research projects to directly examine postgraduate intentions using a careers lens, through the application of the career decision and the career decision-making self efficacy theory. Additionally, this study provides shortened forms of both the career decision-making self efficacy-short form and the career decision scale. Key literature / theoretical perspective: The study integrates the theoretically based measures of career decision and career decision-making self efficacy as well as more recently developed concepts of awareness, knowledge and intentions of postgraduate study in one measurement model. Design/methodology/approach: A survey was conducted on 547 undergraduate bachelor of business students across five Australian universities. Findings: Results indicate students with high career certainty, although almost twice as likely to be aware of postgraduate study options as students who are career undecided, are less likely to intend to pursue postgraduate study than students with high self efficacy. Research limitations/implications: The study relied on self report data and was limited to only bachelor of business students. Practical and Social implications: The results can be applied to the development of university study campaigns and to postgraduate information dissemination processes to help improve student awareness and knowledge of postgraduate study options and to potentially increase future postgraduate intakes. Additionally, this study has provided shortened forms of both the career decision-making self efficacy-short form and the career decision scale which is a direct implication for career practitioners.