A research on self-efficacy and future expectations of students in vocational high schools

Abstract

General self-efficacy, as a person’s (or one’s) general confidence in uncommon situations that are hard to cope with in different areas (Schwarzer, Bassler, Kwiatek, Schroder, Zhang, 1997; Scholz, Gutierrez-Dona, SudveSchwarzer, 2002), is a measurable characteristic which helps predict attitudes that a person displays in more than one area (Alpay, 2010). One of the determiners of individuals' behaviors is their expectations for the future (Adler, 1994). As for the construction of society, the young’s expectations for the future and their hopes to be fulfilled can both affect their psychology and satisfaction with life, and also determine social change and its direction (Yavuzer, Demir, Meşeci and Sertelin, 2005). The general purpose of this study is to determine Vocational High School students’ general self-efficacy and expectation levels for the future. Within this scope, this study investigates whether there is any significant difference between general self-efficacy and future expectations of students in Vocational High Schools in line with such variables as education program type, gender, age, class and income. This study was carried out with 532 students studying at Siirt Vocational School, Vocational School and EruhVocational School embodied in Siirt University. For data collection, General Self- Sufficiency Scale developed by Yıldırım (2010) and Future Expectation Scale developed by Tuncer (2011) were utilized. The cronbach’s alpha coefficieny of general self-sufficiency scale developed by Yıldırım and İlhan (2010) is 0,80 and the scale is composed of three sub-dimensions of starting, not giving up and pursuance effort. The cronbach’s alpha coefficient of Future Expectation Scale developed by Tuncer is .84 and it is single factorial. The analysis of the data is performed with SPSS 21.0 package program. In order to compare the means in the study, Kruskal Wallis Test and Mann- Whitney U Test were applied. The research findings have demonstrated that the self-efficacy levels of students in Vocational High Schools do not change according to gender, class, school of graduation and employment status and it has been found that there is a significant difference between self-efficacy levels of the students in terms of age, income status and the program they are enrolled in. When the data are analyzed in terms of future expectations, it has been found that while there is not any significant difference according to the variables of gender, age and graduation of school, there is a significant discrepancy between students’ future expectations in terms of grade, employment status and the program they are enrolled in.