Published Article

This study investigated social factors and vocational choice of secondary school students in Uyo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State. Three research Questions and three Hypotheses were formulated. A survey method was used for this study. The population of this study comprised all the 2903 senior secondary two students for 2017/2018 school session, from 14 public secondary schools in Uyo Local Government Area. The sample size of 290 senior secondary two students was obtained from 14 public secondary schools in Uyo Local Government Area. This was obtained through simple random sampling technique. The researcher-developed instrument titled “Social factors of Students and Vocational choice Questionnaire” (SCSVAQ) with a total of 33 items was used for data generation. The face validation of the instrument was done by two experts. To ascertain the reliability of the instrument, the researcher administered the questionnaire to 30 SS2 students that were not part of the study, but possess the same attributes of the study group. The overall reliability coefficient of .83 was realised. These coefficients were reasonable estimates of internal consistency of the instrument. Data collected for this study were organized and analysed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation for testing the hypotheses. All the hypotheses were tested at .05 alpha level. There was a significant relationship between prevailing vocation and secondary school students’ vocational choice. Peer pressure has a significant relationship to secondary school students’ vocational choice. Admited Vocation has a significant relationship to students’ vocational choice. Based on the findings that vocational choice of secondary school students are mostly influenced by the social factors, this study recommends: School counsellor should use their wealth of knowledge to counsel the students to ensure that social factors such as prevailing vocation, peer pressure and admired vocation do not influence students’ vocational choice.