Student Perspectives on Leaving School, Pathways, and Careers

Occupations and qualifications

Favoured occupations and qualifications

We asked students to name up to three jobs or careers in which they were interested. We categorised these according to the New Zealand Statistics Standard Classification of Occupations in order to get a sense of the kinds, and levels, of occupations to which students were aspiring. We also asked students to give reasons for their occupational interests. This follows on from research which has shown that young people in the same post-school pathways (courses of study or jobs) may have quite different motivations or identify with the pathway in quite different ways and, conversely, young people engaged in very different pathway options may share similar outlooks (Vaughan et al., 2006). In other words, we did not, for example, want to assume that all students aspiring to professional occupations did so for the same reasons.

We also asked students how many times they expected to study towards a qualification in their lifetime and their reasons if they were expecting to do this more than once. This follows some evidence of workforce development trends showing an increasing demand for qualifications, mobility, and labour market efficiency, and that people may increasingly tend to have more than one career over the course of a lifetime, often necessitating retraining and further education towards qualifications (International Symposium on Career Development and Public Policy, 2006; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2004). We were curious about whether and how this workforce trend extended to students’ understandings about qualifications.

Students’ most favoured careers/jobs

Students named up to three careers or jobs in which they were interested. Most students identified at least two kinds of career or job that interested them, although 7 percent could not identify any career or job of interest. Of the students who did identify one or more jobs or careers, most indicated an interest in occupations that fell into the “technician and associated professional” category (61 percent) and the professional category (50 percent) under the New Zealand Statistics Occupational Classification.

We have used only the broadest level of the statistical hierarchical categories, as further derivation would render the data too spread to be meaningful. Although the broadest level categories are very general, they do refer to jobs (understood as sets of tasks performed by one person) and skill levels (the range and complexity of the tasks), with the categorisation of skill levels taking into account the amount of formal education and training required to perform the tasks.

Table  18: Categorised occupational aspirations

Occupational category	n = 418	%
Technician and associated professional	255	61
Professional	209	50
Sales/service	109	26
Manager	57	14
Trades	57	14
Labour	25	6
Clerical	13	3
Agriculture and fisheries	10	2
Plant/machine	5	1

Note: Percentages add to more than 100 because students were able to specify up to three occupations.

We asked students to give reasons for their occupational interests via an open question. We coded their answers and show the resulting patterns in the following table. Those students with occupational interests in the professional, technician, agriculture and fisheries, and sales/service categories tended to cite reasons such as “I love it”, “I like doing good”, “I’ve always wanted to”, and “it’s interesting”, which we coded as personal reward and enjoyment. Their reasoning suggests intrinsic forms of motivation and engagement, and possibly also a self-awareness about their own dispositions (e.g., people interested in sales/service occupations may have a liking for interactions with other people or “be good with people”).

Students with occupational interests in the manager and clerical categories were particularly likely to cite reasons to do with external reward and lifestyle, such as “it’s good money”, “I like meeting people”, “I can succeed”. This may have to do with these occupations tending to be less well designated and known in the general populace. That is, there are managers and clerical jobs in every industry area but a doctor or an accountant is an instantly recognised occupation in a very specific and known industry area which is potentially more likely to attract people interested in the industry area or satisfied by a specific kind of work (e.g., healing people or managing finance). Management and clerical work, on the other hand, may tend to attract people who are looking for particular kinds of job security (promotion opportunities, organisational role) or lifestyle.

The students citing reasons related to the development and portability of particular skills were more likely to be interested in occupations in the technician and clerical categories. The few students interested in machine, agriculture and fisheries, and clerical occupations were more likely to cite reasons to do with already having some experience in the area, having parents encourage it, and finding it easy.

Students’ reasons for occupational interests are shown in the following table (the highest frequency for reasons for each occupational category is shown in bold).

Table  19: Occupational interests and reasons

Occupational category	Enjoyment, personal reward reasons	Experience, easy, parental approval reasons	Skills development & portability reasons	External reward, lifestyle reasons
	% of occupation choosing reason	% of occupation choosing reason	% of occupation choosing reason	% of occupation choosing reason
Professional	86	2	25	29
Technician and  assoc. professionals	82	6	32	38
Manager	54	7	19	67
Sales/service	73	10	17	39
Trades	63	7	19	39
Clerical	46	15	31	62
Agriculture and fisheries	70	20	-	30
Plant/machine	60	40	20	20
Labour	60	8	20	40

 

Occupational category patterns

Students’ interest in professional occupations showed a pattern of association with other variables and factors similar to the pattern for intended university study (see Section 3). The relationship between students’ interests and the occupations of family members is explored further in Section 6. The likelihood of interest in professional occupations increased with NCEA credit total, cognitive competency, social skills, focused and responsible group rankings, enjoyment of reading, motivation at the age of 14 years, and mother’s qualifications. This trend tended to be reversed for the lowest quartiles or groups, where students were more likely to be interested in trades or service/sales occupations.

Table  20: Students interested in professional occupations

	Lowest quartile or category %	Highest quartile or category %
Total no. of Level 1 NCEA credits	29	80
Cognitive competency	27	71
Motivation at 14	28	68
Social skills	40	67
Focused and responsible	32	66
Mother’s qualifications	35 (none)	63 (university)
Enjoyment of reading	32	59

Table  21: Students interested in trades occupations

	Lowest quartile or category %	Highest quartile or category %
Mother’s qualifications	40 (none)	16 (university)
Enjoyment of reading	40	4
Social skills	35	3
Total no. of Level 1 NCEA credits	33	0
Focused and responsible	32	14
Cognitive competency	28	5
Motivation at 14	23	8
Attendance at school	27	8

Perhaps not surprisingly given the persistence of gender segregation in trades occupations (Fuller, Beck, & Unwin, 2005; McGregor & Gray, 2003, and see also annual reports on New Zealand industry training and apprenticeships by gender), many more males (24 percent) than females (3 percent) aspired to be tradespersons. More academic (66 percent arts and 52 percent science) than non academic (38 percent vocational and 33 percent contextual) students aspired to be professionals, whereas more non academic students (26 percent contextual and 25 percent vocational) than academic students (9 percent science and 6 percent arts) aspired to become tradespeople. While 51 percent of Päkehä/NZ European/Asian students were interested in professional occupations, only 39 percent of Mäori/Pasifika students were interested in these.

A similar trend to that for trades occupations emerged for students interested in service/sales occupations. There were no statistically significant associations for manager occupations.

Table  22: Students interested in service/sales occupations

	Lowest quartile or category %	Highest quartile or category %
Focused and responsible	36	14
Cognitive competency	34	11
Motivation at 14	37	20
Social difficulties (reversed)	32	15

Study towards qualifications over a lifetime

We asked students to give an indication of how many times they expected to study towards qualifications in their lifetime. Half of the students expected to do this just once in their lifetime, but the other half expected to do this two to three times or more. Students’ reasons for multiple periods of study or training tended to be about the development and deepening of expertise.

Table  23: Reasons for study towards qualifications more than once

Reason	n = 420	%
Gain more skills and experience in one particular area	191	46
Gain more job opportunities in different areas	164	39
Increase the status of job or position	147	35
Increase earnings	137	33
Keep up with developments in career/job area	137	33
Keep life interesting and promote a broader outlook in life	128	31
To be able to change jobs when want to	101	24
In case of getting hurt at work or losing a job	80	19

 

Note: Percentages add to more than 100 as students could give more than one reason.

Students in the highest category for enjoyment of reading were more likely than those in the lowest category to think about qualifications in terms of the development of expertise. Those in the highest category for enjoyment of reading (53 percent) were more likely than those in the lowest category (20 percent) to study in order to gain more skills and experience in one career area/job. Students in the highest category for enjoyment of reading (41 percent) were also more likely to study in order to keep up with new developments in one particular career area/job than those in the lowest category (12 percent). Keeping up with new developments was also a more likely reason for students in the highest quartile for cognitive competency (42 percent) than those in the lowest quartile (18 percent).

Overall, the reasons for studying towards qualifications more than once in the lifetime were related more to progression within occupations and careers than to the prospect of developing new careers or linking multiple careers. This theme is discussed and further developed in the following section on students’ perspectives on the notion of “career”.