Factors Influencing Vietnamese Female Students' Intention to Choose Psychology

Psychology is a very useful field in social science with a newfound growing trend in development. For female students in Vietnam, the choice of this field of study doesn’t just reflect its match with one’s personal abilities and value in society, but also opens up to a plethora of career possibilities in the future. This study uses the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) and Holland’s theory concerning choices for lines of work to examine female student’s intentions on choosing to study psychology, including factors such as: personal motivation (MOT), family and social influence (SN), perception of career prospects (CAR), perception of the field of study (PER). The data used was collected from a survey and created with the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling method (PLS-SEM) to test research hypotheses. The results show that female students do have a tendency towards psychology based on a realistic perception of the field, personal ambition and motivation, and confidence in the field’s development instead of being persuaded by the family’s or society’s influence. On that basis, this study proposes a few suggestions on career counseling in secondary education.