Authors : Soo-Kyum Kim, Kyung-Hoon Min and Chun-Ho Yang
Abstract: This study aims to investigate the relationships of college Taekwondo athlete’s social support, career preparation behavior and career exploration behavior. The research tools used in this study were questionnaires with five-point Likert-type scale items: “never” (1 point), “unlikely” (2 points), “neither” (3 points), “likely” (4 points) and “very likely” (5 points). In order to determine the validity of the questionnaires, Exploratory Factor Analyses (EFA) were conducted. For the factor extraction, a principal component analysis was used, followed by a varimax rotation. With the exclusion of questionnaires judged to be inappropriate, 282 copies in total were collected. All statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS 21.0 including a correlation matrix and multiple regressions. First, in the correlations of social support perceived by college Taekwondo athletes with career preparation behavior and career exploration behavior, material support was positively related to all the subfactors. Informational support and emotional support correlated positively with career counseling, career exploration, external activities and self-exploration. Second, material support had a positive impact on all career preparation behaviors. Informational support positively influenced career exploration and emotional support had a positive impact on career counseling and career exploration. Third, material support positively influenced all career exploration behaviors. Informational support had a positive impact on self-exploration while emotional support positively influenced external activities and self-exploration. This is important because it helps people feel good about their own life and such thinking has an impact on initiating or continuing positive behaviors. In situations where jobs are complicated and difficult to predict, the support of parents, professors and friends plays an important role in college student’s career decisions.
Soo-Kyum Kim, Kyung-Hoon Min and Chun-Ho Yang, 2018. Relationships of Social Support Perceived by College Taekwondo Athletes with Career Preparation Behavior and Career Exploration Behavior. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 13: 2828-2833.