A multivariate discriminant analysis of university students' career decisions based on career adaptability, social support, academic major relevance, and university life satisfaction

Career adaptability and its four sub-factors (concern, control, curiosity, and confidence) are helpful in understanding students' career choices and decisions. A sample of 1,297 university students in Seoul, South Korea, participated in this study. Among them, 728 students (56.13%) had already made their career decision, while 569 (43.87%) had not. A multivariate discriminant analysis was carried out to identify its significance in discriminating students' career decisions after the execution of two factor analyses to verify construct validity. We concluded that the multivariate function was appropriate for discriminating students' career decision status, and its predictive accuracy was relatively high based on canonical correlation (.37) and Wilks' lambda (.87). Career concern was identified as the most discriminate variable.