Certainty of career choice at the beginning of university studies: general strategies and attributions in achievement situations

The focus of this paper is on certainty of career choice at the beginning of university studies, and how this relates to students' career motives and more general strategies and attributions in achievement situations. The paper sample comprised 137 first-year students of theology, who completed a questionnaire developed on the basis of earlier studies on motives for studying theology and certainty of career choice. The questionnaire included a section on strategies and attributions in achievement situations (SAQ), a section covering the reasons and motives for starting to study theology and a scale measuring uncertainty of career choice. According to the results, uncertainty of career choice related positively to being assured of a place to study, and negatively to having a spiritual calling, a helping orientation and self-fulfillment. In the first year of university studies it also related positively to task avoidance and social pessimism, and negatively to success expectation. Stepwise regression analysis showed that being assured of a place to study, having a spiritual calling and low self-fulfillment explained 57 percent of the total variance. The strategies and attributions the students used in achievement situations were very modest predictors of uncertainty in career choice. Success expectation and task avoidance explained nine percent of the variance.