Factors influencing vocational choice of senior secondary school students in Ilorin Metropolis, Nigeria

Vocational choice refers to an occupation, which a person has followed for a period of years in which he/she is generally recognized to have become fairly an expert through experience. Vocational choice decision making is not an easy task, yet at one time or the other, individuals are faced with the task of making a choice of career, preparing for it and start making progress in it. The study investigated factors influencing vocational choice of senior secondary school students in Ilorin metropolis. Two hundred senior secondary school students were randomly sampled from ten randomly selected senior secondary schools in the metropolis. A self-developed instrument titled “Factors Influencing Vocational Choice Questionnaire” (FIVCQ) was used to collect relevant data from the respondents. The instrument was developed on a 4 point Likert scale of SA, A, D, SD, which has subscales of parental, personal/social and school related factors within 10 items each. The instrument was validated, pilot tested and the reliability coefficient ascertained its reliability. The main finding of the study revealed that “Personal/Social Factors” was expressed to be the highest factor influencing senior secondary school students’ vocational choice. Other factors as expressed by them are “School and Parental Factors”. It was therefore recommended that school counsellors at all educational level should be trained to provide adequate and effective vocational guidance to students. And programmes like career day/week, vocational enlightenment programmes and other guidance programmes that are educative and informative should be sponsored in the school for students’ benefit.