Youth Career and Educational Aspirations

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Abstract

This pioneering study was conducted to determine the significant factors affecting career and educational aspirations among youth. A large, diverse group of 5,320 boys and girls from middle and secondary schools in the United Arab Emirates were sampled. The design of the study followed a quantitative approach by use of the Career & Educational Aspirations Questionnaire (CEAQ), with an acceptable Cronbach’s reliability coefficient (r= 0.78). Factor analysis used the extraction and rotation methods to present several supporting results. The major results revealed several preferred careers based on participants’ responses using the means rank and t tests, and Scheffe comparisons. The top five preferred future jobs determined by participants were engineer, police officer, physician, pilot, and military. As expected, participants did not rate teaching to be among those preferred top jobs and it was ranked eighth among the twenty-eight jobs. Also, in the absence of expert career counseling, Emirati boys, as in this study, are likely to follow their fathers into government employment.