Linking Undergraduate Engineering Students’ Outcome Expectations, Interests, Career Goals, Self-Efficacy, Social Support, and Barriers in Singapore: A Social Cognitive Career Theory Study

Abstract

The present paper assessed the attributes that could influence career decisions among undergraduate engineering students in Singapore. The social cognitive career theory (SCCT) was employed as the theoretical guideline for the investigation. This paper was directed by three main research questions: (1) How do self-efficacy (SE), outcome expectation (OE), social support (SS), barriers (BR), and interests (IN) affect career decisions among engineering students? (2) How do SS, OE, SS, BR, IN, and career goals (CG) correlate? (3) Are there any differences in the psychological factors between freshmen and senior undergraduate students? 27 participants were recruited from an internationally recognized research institution in Singapore. Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA, Spearman rank-order correlation, and Mann-Whitney U tests were implemented to analyze the collected data. Results from this paper revealed that outcome expectations and interests significantly influenced career decisions, while self-efficacy, social support, and barriers did not have a significant effect. Moreover, there were significant correlations among psychological factors, except between career goals and self-efficacy. No significant differences between freshmen and senior engineering students were found in the psychological factors. Limitations and potential directions for future research are explored in greater depth.