Relationships among self-knowledge, family influence, career knowledge and senior high school students’ aspirations for entrepreneurial careers in Ghana

Abstract

Making a career choice is a major turning point in the lives of adolescents in senior high schools. For it is in the senior high schools that students are advised or counselled on future worthwhile occupations. The study set to establish the relationship among self-knowledge, family influence, career knowledge level and senior high school students’ aspirations for entrepreneurial careers. Four hypotheses were tested, whilst 1,004 Form 3 senior high school students were selected from 27 senior high schools nationwide using the multi-stage sampling approach. A 71-item questionnaire with an overall reliability of 0.79 was used to collect data. The three dependent variables were found to be significantly related to students’ aspirations for entrepreneurial careers. Again, a positive relationship was found between self-knowledge and aspirations for entrepreneurial careers. It was, therefore, concluded that senior high school students in Ghana rank high regarding their self-knowledge, family influence and career knowledge levels in their aspirations to entrepreneurial careers. It was recommended that students should be equipped with skills or assisted to know and understand themselves well with respect to making career choices, and also entrepreneurship education should be introduced in senior high school curriculum in Ghana. Implications of the study for counsellor education include taking the variables (personal and contextual) into consideration in counselling students on careers..