A Study on the Structural Analysis of Factors Influencing Career Maturity in High School Students: Focusing on Reading Activities and Smartphone Dependency

The purpose of this research is to analyze the structural relationship between smartphone dependency and reading activities among high school students, and their impact on career maturity, as mediated by creative thinking ability and growth mindset. Structural equation modeling was applied to data(n=5,800) from the 8th year of the 2013 Korean Education Longitudinal Study (KELS 2013) to this end, and the mediating effects were verified using bootstrapping with phantom variables. The key findings of this study are as follows: First, smartphone dependency had a significant negative impact on creative thinking, growth mindset and career maturity, whereas reading activities had a positive impact on all three. Notably, growth mindset had the strongest positive influence(β=0.491, p<.001) on career maturity of all the involved variables, and the mediating effects of creativity and growth mindset were also significant. These findings expand our theoretical understanding of career development among adolescents in the digital age and have implications for smartphone usage guidance, reading education and career education policy.