The Influence of Dental Hygiene Students' Professionalism and Self-Leadership on Career Attitude Maturity

This study was conducted to identify the influence of dental hygiene students’ professionalism and self-leadership on their career attitude maturity and to provide basic data that can be helpful for students’ career paths. The subjects of the study were 287 Dental hygiene student in Gwang-ju Metropolitan City, and a survey on professionalism, self-leadership, and career attitude maturity was conducted. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 18 using Independent t-test, One Way ANOVA, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, and regression analysis. The results of the study showed that there was a correlation between dental hygiene students' professionalism, self-leadership, and career attitude maturity, and factors that significantly influenced career attitude maturity were Motivation for going to college, public service spirit, goal setting, and self-criticism. Therefore, when providing career counseling to dental hygiene students, it will be necessary to provide assistance so that they can make more mature and planned career decisions by considering their professionalism and self-leadership.