Differences in Career Adaptability and Influencing Factors Based on Emotional and Behavioral Problems of Low-Achieving High School Students

The purpose of this study was to explore the latent types of emotional and behavioral problems among 11th-grade students who perceive themselves as low achievers, and to examine whether there are differences in career adaptability based on these latent types. Additionally, the study tried to investigate whether social support, career exploration activities, job selection factors, and smartphone usage patterns have differential effects on career adaptability depending on the latent type. The participants were 339 ‘subjective low-achieving’ students from the 5th wave of the 2018 Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey, who rated their academic performance in all subjects as ‘very poor’ or ‘poor.’ The key findings are as follows: First, the latent types of emotional and behavioral problems were classified into three groups—high, medium, and low levels—with proportions of 13.64%, 60.49%, and 25.87%, respectively. Second, analysis of career adaptability differences among the three groups showed that the low emotional and behavioral problem group had significantly higher career adaptability compared to the other two groups. Third, the analysis of factors affecting career adaptability revealed that teacher relationships and career aptitude had a positive effect, while the work environment and smartphone gaming had a negative impact. Finally, differences in factors such as parental relationships were observed across the groups. Educational implications are discussed based on these findings.