Career Decision-Making Difficulties, College Self-Efficacy, Fear of Covid-19 And Future Anxiety Among College and University Students: A Cross-Disciplinary Study

Abstract

A review of previous literature suggests that a negatively-significant relationship exists between career decision-making difficulties and college self-efficacy within students, but studies inspecting the association of these factors with future anxiety and the new-normal life have been scarce. Present study therefore aims to investigate the Career Decision-Making Difficulties, College Self-Efficacy, Fear of Covid-19 and Future Anxiety among College and University Students. Data were collected, in the year 2021, from 200 adults (Mean age= 19.75, SD= 1.70, 63% females), all college and university students (95% undergraduates) of different disciplines by administering (a) Career-Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire developed by Gati et al. (1996), (b) College Self-Efficacy Questionnaire developed by Solberg et al. (1993), (c) Fear of Covid-19 Scale developed by Ahorsu et al. (2020) and (d) Future Anxiety Scale developed by Zaleski (1996). Statistical analysis included Descriptive Statistics, Correlation Analysis and Regression Analysis.  Findings revealed that fear of Covid-19 is negatively-correlated to, while future anxiety is positively-correlated to career decision-making difficulties. And college-efficacy is weakly correlated to, but not predicting career decision-making difficulties. Further, Multiple Regression Analysis shows that only future anxiety significantly predicts career decision-making difficulties (β=0.60, p<0.001), explaining 35% variance in the career decision-making difficulties. The study findings shed light on the mechanism in which the career decision-making of the university students is getting affected due to future anxiety. It is important to note that fear of Covid-19 hardly impacts the career decision-making of the students but it is their future anxiety that is playing a cardinal role.