Predicting of Occupational Consideration by Interest, Self-efficacy and Outcome Expectations among Students

Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) was developed to understand the processes that individuals form their interests, make choices, achieve performances, and persist at academic and career endeavors. The aim of this study was to predict occupational consideration by interest, self-efficacy and outcome expectations among secondary school students and for this, examined choice model in SCCT. This study was correlational and a type of structural equation modeling. Samples were 328 secondary male students who selected by cluster sampling from male secondary schools in Qom city. Participants completed measures of self-efficacy, outcome expectations, interest and occupational consideration (Lent et al, 2003) across the Holland (1997) RIASEC themes: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional. To analysis of data and for examining of fit AMOS-26 model was used. Results showed model fit the data well across RIASEC themes. Results showed that self-efficacy and outcome expectations jointly predict interests, and interests mediate the relations of self-efficacy and outcome expectations to occupational consideration. The implications of these findings for further research on the non-Western culture validity of SCCT are considered.