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Factors Influencing Career Planning Among University Students: An Empirical Study

Author(s)

Dou Zhi

Affiliation(s)

The National Police University for Criminal Justice, Baoding, Hebei, China

Abstract

Career planning has become a routine requirement for university students who enter labour markets shaped by contractual employment and rapid occupational turnover. Research on what shapes such planning remains scattered across several traditions, and the traditions rarely speak to one another. This study brings the scattered evidence together. We searched the Crossref metadata service in October 2026, screened records against four inclusion rules, and retained 14 peer-reviewed studies that report empirical results on career planning or career decision-making among university students. Each retained study was coded by determinant layer, measure and design. The synthesis shows that individual resources carry most of the explanatory weight, that family processes operate mainly through self-efficacy and fear of failure, and that institutional exposure to authentic career trajectories changes exploration behaviour in the short term. We assemble these results into a four-layer model, discuss what the model implies for career education in professionally oriented institutions, and state openly what this kind of evidence cannot settle.

Keywords

Career Planning; Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy; Career Adaptability; University Students; Parental Support

References

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