Students' Perception of Success and Its Relation to Career Planning in One School

This dissertation, "Students' Perception of Success and Its Relation to Career Planning in One School" by Yau-keung, Ma, 馬友強, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract The education system in Hong Kong has placed a great emphasis on the acquisition of knowledge and the development of academic skills. In addition to the importance of results in the public examination in relation with further studying, expectations from students' parents and teachers, hoping them to have good academic performance. All these constitute that students' perception of success mainly base on their academic achievement. Every year, many "failures" are created because of their poor academic performance. Take 2001 Hong Kong Certificate Examination as an example, 124,794 candidates sat attempting five subjects or above, only 60% could get 5 passes or above. 87,188 candidates sat attempting six subjects or above, but only 23,505candidate(27%) could get 14 points in their best six subjects that could enable them to compete for a place in Form Six and enter the local tertiary institution. (HKEAA, 2001). Most "failures" only know the traditional route of studying. They lack the career information of other alternative routes. Besides, most students do not understand their own talent that studying in the traditional path may not suit them. Therefore, comprehensive career guidance should be provided to them. Apart from choosing to repeat Form Five, most students getting poor results have to enter the job market. However, they do not acquire the necessary skills required by the world of work, especially facing the rapid changes of the society. What they need is the comprehensive skills and different competencies required in the world of work. This research aims at investigating the perception of success of 102 Form Four students in a local secondary school. It examines the factors constituted to this perception and how their perception of success affected their career planning. Among them, parental expectation is believed by the researcher as the most important. Questionnaire was used in conducting the research. The data indicated that most students of this research saw academic achievement was the major indicator of their success. This was mainly affected by the expectation of their parents. However, the data reflected that students lacked sufficient career knowledge and their career awareness was weak. They only knew the traditional route of studying that is, the completion of Form Five, followed by Matriculation and enter university. They didn't have enough knowledge on other alternative post Form Five studying routes. The situation mentioned above reflected the importance of broadening students' perception of success. Different definitions of success were given in this research, including the traditional one that emphasizes on competition and external rewards; and the modern one that focuses on the personal pursuit. Essentials skills and st behaviors that required for the 21 century were given. It is also important to provide comprehensive career guidance and career education have to be developed. Therefore, some suggestions have been made in this research regarding to this two aspects. ii DOI: 10.5353/th_b3568058 Subjects: Success Underachievers - China - Hong Kong - Attitudes Underachievers - Vocational guidance - China - Hong Kong