Career connections

What is most connected with your most favoured career?

We asked students to consider their most favoured occupation and how connected it might be to a range of statements about other school or work activities and experiences. This is slightly different from asking students about perceived influences on their careers thinking; we explore that in the following section. We asked about connections as a way to get at students’ perceptions of the links between their particular favoured career aspiration and its relationship with other ideas, people, experiences, and outcomes.

Most of the question items were not seen as connected to their most favoured occupation by the majority of students. In fact there were really only three or four items where more than a third of students indicated a connection and these tend to be related to leisure pursuits and longstanding interests such as “a leisure activity I did outside of school” and “something I’ve wanted to do since I was little” or school-related activities such as “one or more subjects I took at school”.

Other experiences which might more obviously familiarise students with particular careers more directly (for example, paid work or family occupational links) were generally not seen as connected to career interests. It is still possible these potential connections did familiarise students with particular careers, but they may have achieved this in a way that might have eliminated those careers as possibilities—a strategy sometimes employed by students seeking to filter and organise the many possibilities through school-based career “tasters” (Vaughan & Kenneally, 2003).

Students did indicate fairly strong connections between their most favoured occupation and “something that pays well”. However, this is likely to be a result of students’ interest in careers in the professional and technical occupational categories (see Section 3) which tend to have higher salaries anyway. It is also unlikely that this connection is actually a reason for students’ interest in those careers; only 17 percent of the students interested in professional careers and 13 percent of the students interested in technician careers cited earning good money as a reason for their interest. Instead, over 80 percent cited reasons related to personal reward and enjoyment (see Section 3) which suggests that while students expect they will do something that does pay well, this is an incidental connection rather than a motivating connection.

Figure 5: Experiences and ideas connected with students’ most favoured career aspirations

Connections to occupational categories

The students most likely to say that what they learnt in their “school subjects” was strongly connected with their chosen occupations were those most interested in a career in the professional (38 percent), managerial (35 percent), and agriculture and fisheries occupational categories (33 percent). Students with a favoured career interest in the sales/service and clerical occupational categories were least likely to cite a strong connection to school subjects. This suggests that school may not be helping all students to make connections to all kinds of occupations.

Despite a lack of connection with their school subjects, students interested in a career in the sales/service category were the most likely to cite a strong connection to “something I have wanted to do since I was little” (59 percent). There were also some strong connections here for students interested in careers in the managerial (28 percent), professional (22 percent), and technician categories (20 percent), although less so than for sales/service.

Connections to “something that pays well” were more likely to be cited by students interested in managerial (30 percent) and professional occupations (21 percent). On the other hand, students interested in agriculture and fisheries (33 percent) and technician occupations (31 percent) had strong connections to “a leisure or interest activity I did outside of school”, again suggesting that school is not a major connector for students interested in these occupations.

Connections with school-based experiences

The following two tables show a similar pattern where students scoring in the highest quartile or grouping are more likely to connect their favoured career with school subjects and less likely to connect it with school-based workplace learning. It is very likely that students in the highest quartile for these factors have not experienced school-based workplace learning programmes. This in turn reinforces a tendency for a lack of connection in schools between conventional and academic school subjects and vocational subjects and workplace learning. In most cases these are run as distinct streams.

Table 26: Connections between career choice and subjects taken at school

Table 27: No connection between career choice and school programme with workplace learning

Males (56 percent) were slightly less likely than females (66 percent) to see little or no connection between career choice and school programme with workplace learning. Strong connections to workplace learning tended to decrease according to quartile in relation to cognitive competency: from 19 percent in the lowest quartile down to just 4 percent in the highest quartile.

Students in the highest quartile (26 percent) for cognitive competency were more likely than those in the lowest quartile (18 percent) to see a strong connection to “an activity I did at school that was not a school subject”. However, overall numbers for a strong connection to “an activity I did at school that was not a school subject” were very low and there were no other variable associations—possibly because students have comparatively less exposure to school activities which are not school subjects or that very few students engage with those activities which tend to be aimed at very selective groups of students (e.g., top performers or those with specialist interests) or at-risk students.

Connections with experiences outside school

Strong connections to paid work were less frequently cited; only 8 percent of students saw a connection at all. However, the overall pattern of associations with variables is the converse of the pattern for strong connections with school-based experiences. Students in the lowest quartile for cognitive competency (20 percent) and social difficulties (reversed) (21 percent) were more likely to see a strong connection to paid work than those in the highest quartiles (4 percent, and 3 percent). Students taking non academic courses (18 percent contextual and 13 percent vocational) were more likely than those taking academic courses (5 percent arts and 6 percent science) to see a strong connection. It is possible that students find it hard to see themselves in options beyond those they already know.

Students in the highest quartile for enjoyment of reading (82 percent) were more likely to see no connection to paid work than those in the lowest quartile (40 percent). Females (76 percent) were slightly more likely than males (63 percent) to see no connection to paid work (perhaps because there is no particular connection, depending on the kind of work done).

Just 14 percent of students saw a connection to a “family business or a job that someone in my family has” and just over two-thirds (68 percent) saw little or no connection, making this an unlikely career connection for most students. However, students in the highest quartile for social skills were more likely than those in the lowest quartile to see a connection here, and males were more likely to see a connection than females.

Finally, although possible career connections to “something that pays well” need to be read carefully (see previous sub section), males (65 percent) were more likely than females (40 percent) to see a connection here. Again this may or may not necessarily be a motivational connection; however, it may be that males feel more societal pressure to earn money or have a job that pays well.

Although some connections may only be perceived retrospectively or may be perceived as connections now but loosen their grip over time (students may perceive things differently with more distance), it seems that the statistical associations show up differences in the kinds of connections to career for students associated with different variables. School is connected to career possibilities and ideas for students who are doing well at school; these variables also show up for students intending to study at university and with an interest in professional occupations. Non school activities and interests are connected for students not doing so well at school; these variables also show up for students intending to work full-time or pursue earning-while-learning options and non professional occupations.