THE IMPACT OF THE GENDER AND COLLEGE VARIABLES ON THE MATURITY OF THE CAREER AMONG THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT SULTAN QABOOS UNIVERSITY

Abstract

This quantitative study discusses the level of professionalism maturity of students at Sultan Qaboos University in the Sultanate of Oman. The problem is that the lack of professional maturity makes the student hesitant, to chooses the specialization randomly or according to the parents or teachers' opinion, regardless of his inclinations, capabilities, future planning and what the labor market requires. Which leads to a change of specialization, delay in graduation or quit the university. Therefore, the study aimed to diagnose the level of professional maturity of first-year students, and the effect of the gender (male / female) variables, and Faculty (human / scientific). To achieve the objectives the descriptive and analytical method was used. The data collection was based on the (Crates) scale for the maturity of the professional tendency, that was applied on a sample of (328) male and female students. The findings revealed that: The level of maturity of the professional direction was average on the scale as a whole, the field of independence ranked first, the assurance came second, while interest in professional decision-making came last. There were statistically significant differences in the maturity of the occupational orientation attributed to the gender variable; where the differences appeared statistically significant in the area of interest only in favor of males.