Parental Factors Influencing Career Choice Among High School Students in Nairobi County

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent by which parental factors influence career choiceamong form four students in Nairobi County. The study also sought to establish the relationship and significance of this parental factors and the student’career choice. The population of the study was all the 27,614 form four students who had enrolled for the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) examinations for the year 2016. A total of 400 students were sampled for the study out of which 383 responded giving a response rate of 95.75%.The survey used purposive sampling technique to sample 10 schools from Nairobi County to carry out the survey while simple random sampling technique was used to sample the students. Questionnaires were used as the instruments for data collection. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software was used to analyse the data. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages were used to analyse the data. The results were presented in the form of tables and graphs. Results from the study showed that parental factors influence the career choice of students in Nairobi County. These factors included parental highest education level, parents’ occupation, parental values and expectations, and parent-child relationships. However, established that 92.4% of the parents of Nairobi County students were middle class economic income and above. As such the socio-economic status of the family was found not to influence the career choice of the students. The study recommended that teachers, parents, and career guidance counsellors should take into cognizance the influence of parental factors as they guide students throughthe process of career selection.This will enable the students to make sound career choices depending on their educational achievement and career aspirations.