Mediating Effects of Self-Efficacy and Career Maturity on the Relationship of Parental Attachment and Job Seeking Stress of College Students: Focus on Multi Group Analysis between University and Junior College

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of parental attachment on job seeking stress among the university students and junior college students. We explore the mediating effects of self-efficacy and career maturity on the relations between parental attachment and job seeking stress. We selected 292 university students and 285 junior college students as participants from Daegu and Gyeongsangbuk-do. All participants completed surveys on the measurement of parental attachment, self-efficacy, career maturity, and job seeking stress. Collected data was analyzed by descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation, structural equational models, and Sobel test with SPSS software ver. 18.0 and Amos software ver. 18.0. The major findings are as follow. First, parental attachment had no significant effect on job seeking stress. Second, self-efficacy and career maturity mediated between parental attachment and job seeking stress. In addition, there were significant differences between university students and junior college students regarding the relation between parental attachment and job seeking stress. Junior college student's career maturity had a greater influence than that of the university students. The findings of this study suggest that intervention to address self-efficacy and career maturity are important to resolve college students' job seeking stress; in addition, school type should be considered to understand job seeking stress.