| 英文摘要： | To develop and construct an optimal career is one of the major challenges for youths in today’sworld. For college students, who are facing the key stage of career development, the concept of“career” is crucial. However, the meaning of “career” is complicated and blurred and there is adearth of systematic research on the multi-facet notions of career with its universality and culturaldifferences. Therefore, the present study seeks to explore the concept of ‘career’ among Taiwanesecollege students situated in the flux of Western and Chinese cultures. By employing the prototypeanalysis method, a group of 200 college students were invited to participate in the processes ofestablishing, expanding and validating career-related terms and phrases in defining thecircumscription and scope of career, and then a semantic analysis by similarity sorting wasimplemented to obtain the features classification of the career concept among these college students.Data of similarity sorting were analyzed using cluster analysis; a tree diagram depicting the meaningstructure of career was constructed based on the result of calculating the normalized root meansquare distance, which mirrors the distance among each clusters. The clustering results yielded tohierarchical tree diagram of the conception of career consisting of multiple levels. In the horizontaldimension, there was an “intrinsic” versus “extrinsic” division, labeled as superordinate level 1 and“anchoring” and “cultivating,” labeled as superordinate level 2. Under the superordinate levels, two layers of basic level concepts were also identified. Basic 1 level concepts include (from left to right):“orienting,” “locating,” “choice making” (under “anchoring”), “beliefs about work,” “competence”(under “cultivating”), “work life,” and “family life” (“extrinsic”). Basic 2 level concepts consist of“future development,” “existential concerns” (under “orienting”), “quality of being,” “attributes forstriving” (under “locating”), “prevail through effort” (under “beliefs about work”), “dance withopportunity,” “education,” “professional abilities” (under “competence“), “thorough and practicalconcerns of job,” “financial independence,” “stress of reality,” “work loyalty,” “social and globalreality” (under “work life”), “family relationship and responsibility,” and “quality of life” (under“family life”). Underneath the basic level concepts, there are 36 subordinate level concepts. As to thevertical dimension of the career prototype, the intrinsic dimension which contains 5 levels ofconcepts is a complicated meaning system, emphasizing the internal process of self-exploration andcultivation. The intrinsic system reflects concepts about decision-making and actualization of careerdevelopment among college students. The extrinsic dimension contains 4 levels of concepts,highlighting college students’ consideration of their relationships with the external social contextincluding family, work, and the global world. The result showed that the meaning of career weremulti-facet and all-embracing, reflecting a mixed influences from Western individualist orientation,Chinese cultural tradition and contemporary working world. This pioneering study has paved theway for establishing culturally-fit career theories as well as career guidance and counseling. |
|---|
