Effect of Parents’ Socio-Economic Background on Secondary School Students Career Choice in Kebbi State, Nigeria

Careers are the reality of life that needs to be considered important in today’s modern societies. Choosing a career is a complex decision-making process that coincides with so many environmental, cultural, social and economic variables, which creates psycho-social stress for students especially those in secondary school. The study adopted a mixed-method approach. A sample of 250 senior secondary two (SS2) students was purposively drawn from 130 senior secondary schools in Kebbi State. A standardised Family Influence Scale (FIS) was adopted for this study. The scale was modified to have two sub scales: parents’ occupation and family income. The face and content validity of FIS was carried out using experts in the field of guidance and counselling from Adamu Augie College of Education, Argungu. FIS was further subjected to pilot testing, and a reliability coefficient of 0.82 was obtained using the Cronbach Alpha formula. Descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while inferential statistics of t-test were used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The outcome of this study revealed the grand mean scores of 2.8 and 2.7 which are greater than the decision mean score of 2.5 to imply that parents’ occupational backgrounds and income levels from secondary school students’ career choice significantly. Equally, significant differences were found (t= .19, df= 248, p-value =0.03) regarding the influence of parents’ gender on the career choices of male and female students in secondary schools in Kebbi State. Considering the influence of parents on the career choice of their children, it was recommended that parents should seek the help of professional career counsellors to guide their children in making intelligent career decisions.