The Career Planning Attitudes of Young Individuals: The Case of Department of Sports Management at IU-Cerrahpaşa Sports Sciences Faculty

The study aimed to examine the career attitudes of young individuals by certain variables. The study sample consisted of 173 volunteer students, 105 (60.7%) male and 68 (39.3%) female, studying at the Department of Sports Management of Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa Sports Sciences Faculty. In addition to a personal information form, the “Career Future Inventory (CFI)” developed by Rottinghaus, Day, and Borgen (2005) was used in the study. The validity and reliability study of the tool was conducted by Kalafat (2012). The CFI is a 5-point Likert type scale including 25 items and 3 sub-dimensions. To the Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test results, the data did not have a normal distribution, so the Mann-Whitney U test was applied for the analysis of bivariate data, and the Kruskall Wallis test for more than two variables. Significant differences were found between CFI sub-dimensions by gender, grade level and academic grade point averages. It was concluded that career planning attitudes of young individuals varied by certain variables, and academic achievement affected career attitudes. Journal of Educational Issues ISSN 2377-2263 2020, Vol. 6, No. 2 www.macrothink.org/jei 389


Introduction
The "career" word can be defined as the path that a person follows to achieve success in the working life. Its roots date back to the French word "carriere" (Işık, 2017). Arık and Seyhan (2016) describe "career" as the high positions and the progress that a person achieved in business life. Career can also be characterized by occupation or profession that a person works in till the end of his working life. Thus, a person's career is more than just his occupation, it involves the education and expectations related to that career and the progress that occurs with the professional knowledge and experience in workplace (Atay, 2006).
Career planning is the pre-planning process of individuals for the desired occupations and positions who are not in business life or have not reached the positions they desire yet (Gökoğlan & Kaval, 2020). According to Gezer (2010), career planning is the process of self-assessment, setting short-, medium-and long-term goals, making a plan considering those goals, and implementing them. Career planning involves the stages of making an overview, determining the sector, marketing plan, one's strengths and weaknesses, and making an action plan and finance plan (Taşlıyan et al., 2011). Fisher and Griggs (1995) emphasized the importance of the following factors for a career planning of students: Career choice is one of the most critical decisions in life, and maybe that decision can be made once in a lifetime (Serin et al., 2014). In Turkey, individuals make those decisions before the university exam. Such decisions that can influence a person's whole life are made in an unplanned way and with the effect of several environmental factors (Özdemir, 2010). The studies in the literature revealed that in addition to the factors such as general knowledge, interest in the occupation, and the job satisfaction, the personal characteristics are also influential in determining an occupation and career for young individuals. Besides, the socio-economic status and family situations have distinctive effects on career choice (Yılmaz et al., 2012). In this sense, this study aimed to examine the career planning attitudes of young people by certain variables.

Research Model
The screening model is one of the quantitative research methods and describes the current situation. The topic of research (i.e., an event, a subject or an object) is defined within its conditions and as it is (Kuzu, 2013). A screening model was applied for the current study.

Research Universe and Sample
A research universe involves all individuals and elements that possess similar characteristics related to a study (Şimşek, 2012). The universe of the current study consisted of all the individuals studying at the sports management departments of higher education institutions in Turkey.
A study sample is a subset selected considering specific characteristics in the universe and it is thought to represent the universe (Şimşek, 2012). The sample of the current study included 173 volunteer students-105 (60.7%) male, and 68 (39.3%) female-studying at the Department of Sports Management at Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa Sports Sciences Faculty.

Data Collection Tools
The personal information form was prepared by the researcher, and it included 5 questions about certain personal characteristics such as gender, age, grade level, academic grade point average, and welfare status.
"Career Future Inventory" (CFI) was developed by Rottinghaus, Day, and Borgen (2005), and the validity and reliability study was carried out by Kalafat (2012). It is a 5-point Likert type scale (1-Strongly Agree, 5-Strongly Disagree), including 25 items, and three sub-dimensions (career adaptability, career optimism, perceived knowledge). The internal consistency coefficient of the inventory was 0.88.

Data Analysis
The study data were analyzed using the SPSS 20 package program. Besides, the percentage (%) and frequency (f) methods were applied as statistical methods.
The Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test was performed to determine whether the data obtained through an online Google Form had a normal distribution, and the results revealed it did not have a normal distribution. Therefore, the Mann Whitney U test was applied for the bivariate data, and the Kruskal Wallis test was performed for more than two variables.  ISSN 2377-2263 and above. Of the participants, 25.4% had a "high", 52.6% had "medium", and 22% had "low" welfare status.  Table 2 presents the results of Mann Whitney-U test that was performed to determine whether there was a significant difference between CFI sub-dimensions by gender.

Findings
According to the analysis result, there was no statistically significant difference in the "Career Adaptability" (z = -1.717, p > 0.05) and "Career Optimism" (z = -1.336, p > 0.05) sub-dimensions of CFI by gender. However, a statistically meaningful difference was seen in "Perceived Knowledge" sub-dimension by gender (z = -2.277, p < 0.05).  Table 3 demonstrates the results of the Kruskal-Wallis test which was carried out to find out whether there was a significant difference between CFI sub-dimensions by grade levels.
The analysis result revealed a statistically significant difference in the "Career Adaptability" sub-dimension by grade level (X 2 = 9.469, p < 0.05). However, there was no significant difference in "Career Optimism" (X 2 = 2.985, p > 0.05) and "Perceived Knowledge" (X 2 = .657, p > 0.05) sub-dimensions by grade levels of the participants.  A Kruskall-Wallis test was performed to determine whether there was a significant difference between CFI sub-dimensions by academic grade averages, and the test results are given in Table 4 above.
According to the analysis results, there was no statistically significant difference in "Career Adaptability" (X 2 = 6.774, p > 0.05) and "Career Optimism" (X 2 = 6.180, p > 0.05) sub-dimensions by academic grade point averages of individuals. Nevertheless, s statistically significant difference was found in "Perceived Knowledge" sub-dimension by academic grade point averages (X 2 = 11.404, p < 0.05).  Table 5 shows the results of the Kruskall-Wallis test that determined whether there was a significant difference between CFI sub-dimensions by age.
According to the test results, no statistically significant difference was found in sub-dimensions of the CFI by age: "Career Adaptability" (X 2 = 3.428, p > 0.05), "Career Optimism" (X 2 = 1.996, p > 0.05), and "Perceived Knowledge" (X 2 = 2.084, p > 0.05). The Kruskall-Wallis test was performed to determine whether there was a significant difference between CFI sub-dimensions by welfare status of individuals, and the test results are shown in Table 6 above.

Discussion and Conclusion
The analysis test results revealed that there was no statistically significant difference in "career adaptability" and "career optimism" sub-dimensions by gender. However, a meaningful difference was found in the "perceived knowledge" sub-dimension. When the average scores were examined, it was seen that the average scores of males were higher than females. Hence, it can be inferred that male individuals have a better knowledge of the labour market than female individuals. Several studies in the literature emphasized significant differences in career attitudes of students by gender (Büyükyılmaz et al., 2016;Üzüm & Uçkun, 2015;Kılıç et al., 2020;Coetzee & Harry, 2015) although a few studies are indicating no difference by gender (Temel & Nas, 2018;Özşen, 2019). Similarly, significant differences were found in favour of male participants in those studies, while some studies yielded differences in favour of female participants. The increasing number of working women can be a factor. Üzüm and Uçkun (2015) indicated that it might stem from recognizing the importance of economic freedom of women today.
There was no statistically significant difference in "career optimism" and "perceived knowledge" sub-dimensions by grade levels of the participant students, but a meaningful difference was observed in the "career adaptability" sub-dimension. The average scores of the 4th graders were higher than the averages of students studying in the 2nd and 3rd grade. It is an expected result, since, as Karadaş et al. (2017) stated, senior students generally have a better knowledge of career adaptability and the labour market. Although the scores of senior students in the "career adaptability" sub-dimension were high in the current study, no significant difference was found in the "perceived knowledge" about the labour market. Karadaş et al. (2017) also found no significant difference in career attitudes by grade levels.
Career adaptability refers to following new developments and innovations in the sector and being prepared for possible changes in a career (Kalafat, 2012). Thus, it can be expressed that ISSN 2377-2263 the 4th-graders are more prepared than the lower-graders on condition of innovations and changes relates to the career plan.

Journal of Educational Issues
Statistically, no difference was found in "career adaptability" and "career optimism" sub-dimensions by academic grade point averages of the participants, but a significant difference was observed in the "perceived knowledge" sub-dimension. In this sense, it was determined that most of the participants had an academic grade point average of 3.01 and above. Therefore, it can be indicated that the students who have high academic achievement have the disposition to possess better knowledge and experience of the employment trends in the sector, adaptation to changes in business life, and positive thinking in career planning.
There was no statistically significant difference in "career adaptability", "career optimism", and "perceived knowledge" sub-dimensions by age. Similarly, Büyükyılmaz et al. (2016), Temel and Nas (2018), and Kılıç et al. (2020) found no meaningful difference in career attitudes by age factor, which overlaps with the findings of the current study.
In terms of the welfare status of the participants, statistically significant no difference was observed in "career adaptability", "career optimism", and "perceived knowledge" sub-dimensions. Kılıç et al. (2020), Büyükyılmaz et al. (2016), and Üzüm and Uçkun (2015) revealed that monthly income did not influence career attitudes of students. Those results were in parallel with the current findings.
Ultimately, it has been concluded that certain variables affected the career planning attitudes of young people, and academic success was also played an important role in career attitudes.