The mediating effect of career maturity in the effect of perceived career barrier of college student on career decision level

Objectives The purpose of this study was to verify the structural relationship between college students' perceived career barriers, career maturity, and career decision level, and the mediating effect of career maturity on the im-pact of perceived career barriers on career decision level. Methods For this purpose, 358 college students nationwide were selected as research subjects. A survey was conducted with the independent variables of perceived career barriers, mediating variables of career maturity, and career decision level selected as dependent variables. And the collected data were subjected to reliability ver-ification, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, path analysis, and bootstrap ver-ification using SPSS 26.0 & AMOS 18.0 programs to derive research results. Results The relationship between perceived career barriers, career decision level, and career maturity was found to be appropriate, and perceived career barriers and career maturity were found to be important variables in career decision level. In addition, career maturity was found to have a direct and indirect effect in the impact of psycho-logical career barriers on the career decision level, and career maturity was found to have an indirect effect in the impact of environmental career barriers on the career decision level. Conclusions The conclusions of this study are as follows. First, it was confirmed that career maturity plays a medi-ating variable in the impact of college students' perceived career barriers on their career decision level. Second, the validity of this study was supported by the need to examine the concepts separately rather than integrating career barriers to explore career decision levels. Third,It is expected that college students experiencing perceived career barriers will be able to use it as basic data to understand the level of career decision by exploring the path of career planning and selection for each task.