FUTURE CAREER ANXIETY BASED ON PARENTAL PRESSURE AND GENDER DIFFERENCES AMONG PUBLIC UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN DELTA AND EDO STATES

The study investigated future career anxiety based on parental pressure and gender differences among public university students in Delta and Edo States. Two research questions guided the investigation. The study adopted the descriptive design of research. The descriptive design was appropriate in order to statistically describe the variations. The population of the study is 110,220 students in all Eight (8) Public Universities in Delta and Edo States. The sample for the study consists of 460 undergraduate students. The Multistage and simple random procedure was used to arrive at the sample. The research instrument titled “Future Career Anxiety Scale Based on Parental Pressure (FCABPPS)” was designed by the researcher. A reliability coefficient of 0.88 was obtained for the items on the questionnaire. The researcher personally visited the various sampled universities to administer the instrument. Data collected were subjected to data analysis procedure using descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation in SPSS software version 20. Since the response format was based on four-point scale, the decision rule was that any statement having a mean score of 2.50 and above stood for future career anxiety based on parental pressure while the mean score rating below 2.50 stood for no future career anxiety based on parental pressure. The findings of the study show that there are future career anxiety based on parental pressure among public university students in Delta and Edo States and that there are future career anxiety based on gender differences among public university students in Delta and Edo States. Based on the findings of this study it was recommended among others that parents should embrace the exploration of individual children to transform stress into strength, that is, not pressuring them to take a career for personal and professional accomplishment.