The Influence of Contextual Aspects on Career Decision Making of Malaysian Technical Students

The paper reports a survey to investigate the influence of contextual aspects on students’ career planning and development. A set of questionnaire was used to collect data from 1,436 Form Five students from 22 Technical/Vocational schools in Malaysia. The results show that contextual factors have influenced the choice of students’ career decision. Other findings show that the contextual factors such as lack of role models in the family and lack of career information received at home influenced the respondents’ career choices in technical fields. The paper concludes that parents should play significant role in providing career information at home.