Fostering Academic Major Satisfaction, Career Curiosity, and Job Search Behaviors Among Electrical/Electronic Technology Education Undergraduates

This study investigates the effect of practical skills-based career training intervention in electrical/electronic works on graduating students’ academic major satisfaction, career curiosity, and self-defeating job search behaviors (SDJSBs). We employed the quasi-experimental design, with a three-wave longitudinal survey. The participants were 101 electrical/electronic technology education undergraduates from two publicly owned universities in Nigeria. Our intervention procedures were guided by the tenets of social cognitive career theory and the theory of planned behavior. The findings revealed significant positive increase in the students’ satisfaction with their academic major, and career curiosity, as well as significant decrease in SDJSBs (viz., procrastination, impulsiveness, and failure to network). We also found mediating effects of learning self-efficacy and perseverance of effort on academic major satisfaction, career curiosity, and SDJSBs. © Curators of the University of Missouri 2018.