Public service motivation and career choice intentions of social work students: the roles of altruistic motivation and professional values.

IF 2.6 3区心理学 Q2 PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

Frontiers in Psychology Pub Date : 2025-02-27 eCollection Date: 2025-01-01 DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1517457

Zheng-Xin Hu, Kai-Peng Gan, Guo-Yuan Sun, Qiu Wang

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Abstract

The shortage and high turnover of social work professionals in China pose a major challenge to social governance and societal well-being, making it crucial to understand the factors influencing social work students' career choices. Based on a purposive sampling method, between April and June 2023, a sample of 624 social work students was collected from universities in three provinces of China (Guangdong, Jiangxi, and Yunnan). The present study employs the SPSS PROCESS macro to examine the relationship between public service motivation (PSM) and career choice intentions, exploring how altruistic motivation and professional values influence the impact of PSM on career decisions. The results indicate that PSM and its dimensions strongly affect social work students' career intentions, with altruistic motivation partially mediating this effect. Professional values positively moderate PSM's impact, strengthening its influence on career choices. These findings provide valuable insights for social work education, guiding career strategies to reduce turnover and support the profession's sustainable development.

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来源期刊

Frontiers in Psychology PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY-

CiteScore

5.30

自引率

13.20%

发文量

7396

审稿时长

14 weeks

期刊介绍： Frontiers in Psychology is the largest journal in its field, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research across the psychological sciences, from clinical research to cognitive science, from perception to consciousness, from imaging studies to human factors, and from animal cognition to social psychology. Field Chief Editor Axel Cleeremans at the Free University of Brussels is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to researchers, academics, clinicians and the public worldwide. The journal publishes the best research across the entire field of psychology. Today, psychological science is becoming increasingly important at all levels of society, from the treatment of clinical disorders to our basic understanding of how the mind works. It is highly interdisciplinary, borrowing questions from philosophy, methods from neuroscience and insights from clinical practice - all in the goal of furthering our grasp of human nature and society, as well as our ability to develop new intervention methods.