GENDER AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AS PREDICTORS OF TOURISM FACULTY STUDENTS’ CAREER ADAPTABILITY

Defining individual and cognitive factors that determine the career adaptability of university students and developing these factors through education, will positively affect the students’ career success. The aim of this study is to empirically test the influence of demographic factors and emotional intelligence, which are regarded as influential factors, on the career adaptability of university students. The study sample consists of students at Akdeniz University Tourism Faculty, which is located in the city of Antalya, Turkey. Data were collected through questionnaires distributed among 341 students, selected by random sampling method and these were analysed by CHAID method, which is a decision tree application. Findings of the study reveal the effects of gender and emotional intelligence on various significance levels in classifying the students' career adaptability as high and low. Findings indicate that emotional intelligence and gender are significant variables that can be used to differentiate the career adaptability. It is concluded that women with a high emotional intelligence level tend to have high career adaptability. According to the findings of the study, it is observed that female students with high emotional intelligence are more likely to deal with the challenges of today's business world in a better way.