Browsing by Subject "parents' education"

Targets. The study examined the educational choices of upper secondary school students. It focused on the educational choices of upper secondary school second-year students, factors influencing those choices, and their connection to a student's background information (parents' education, gender, school achievements). Furthermore, adolescents' readiness to make educational choices was examined as well how high their educational goals were set and whether education had instrumental or intrinsic value for the. The rational choice theory emphasizing an individual's own choice (Elster 1989) and the reproduction theory emphasizing the influence of social structures on educational choice-making (Bourdieu 1986;1995;1998) formed the theoretical background of the study. Methods. 111 second-year students from seven upper secondary schools in the capital region participated in the study. Research data was collected by an electronic questionnaire. This quantitative study was examined by using statistical methods. The data was analysed with statistical analysis program SPSS. The data was evaluated by using factor analysis, cross tabulation, chi-square test, t-test, the Kruskall-Wallis Test, Crobach's alpha, the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U test, and descriptive statistics. Results and conclusions. It was concluded in the study that four factors have an impact on educational choices, the most important of which were the variables depicting personal interest. In this study background information had no connection to the argumentation concerning the educational choices. The study showed that an upper secondary school steers an adolescent's educational goals strongly towards academic studies and university. The parents' education or gender had no relevance on educational level goals whereas school achievements had an impact on educational choices. The better the school achievements, the more likely the student applied for a university. The study indicated that the upper secondary school students' readiness to make educational choices at the end of their second school year is not sufficient yet.