▶ BCM210 RESEARCH PRACTICES IN MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION
Research Topic: The relationship between stress and future career decisions among university students
My section is about peer pressure and I have a different set of questions for both the online questionnaire as well as the interview. I wanted to find out whether peer pressure is significant within university students and determine whether they have specific habits that they use if ever being pressured or in the midst of being pressured by their peers.
I tried to be as specific and straight forward with my questions rather than vague in order to receive realistic and truthful answers. In my first question I asked in the online questionnaire, I asked what first comes to their mind when them and their friend’s talk about each other’s future career choices. This was a multiple choice question and I gave a set of impromptu answers that may or may not relate to the students like getting into a job that is related to their degree or remaining unemployed. To my surprise I found that 37.1% of the students answered that they were thinking of getting into a job that is related to their degree; the reason I was pretty surprised at this is because the friends that I have typically get into a job that is completely the opposite from their graduated degree — before they graduated however, they do talk about getting into a job that is in the same field as their degree; but the end result typically is either a part-time job that they settle for the time being or a full-time job that is not related to their degree.
Moving on to the next few questions, I had statement questions that requires answers based on a scale; with 1 being the most relatable to the student and 5 being the least relatable. For the second question, the statement is: when my friends talk about their future career paths, I feel like I can get influenced by their choices. I was expecting a more drastic answer but what I got was 54.3% of the university students answered the middle choice which was number 3, meaning that they are basically in the middle of getting influenced and not getting influenced. This shows me that university students despite already being set into a particular degree and I am certain that they are following their own personal goals and paths; can still have a sense of uncertainty when it comes to life choices and career paths. Other than that, the second most answered was number 4 with 22.9% of the students feeling this way — this shows me that there is still a selected amount of students that don’t really get influenced by their friends when they talk about their future career paths, it may not be severe but it is definitely more than the uncertainty of the majority of students that answered number 3.
My third statement question is: I feel stressed when my friends talk about our future career, and the results of this question was quite a close call; again the majority of students answered number 3 with 37.1% of them choosing this option. The fourth and final question relates to the previous one and that is: I feel a sense of stress/panic when I think about my future career without my friends in the picture; again the answer is similar as most of the students which is 38.2% of them answered number 3. This shows me that there is a common habit for university students to feel a sense of uncertainty when it comes to the future and their future career paths.
In my interview questions I had more open-ended questions that allowed more freedom for the students to give me the answers they wanted to tell me rather than a set group of answers. For my first question I asked the students when getting into the topic of ‘the future,’ do they have a tendency to ignore the topic or indulge in it; again, I noticed that 2/3 of the students had a sense of uncertainty with the topic ‘the future’. The next question I asked was do you want to be working with your peers in the future, and why. All of the students answered yes as they believe that it will be fun since they feel working with friends equals better cooperation, however one student mentioned that there might be some arguments in work — as a student who has worked with her friends before — I can agree because since you have a better connection with your friends, if there ever is a scenario at work regarding work, it can either be personal issues that interfere or work related issues where your friend and you can have disagreements due to different habits and ways of working.
My final question was in the future, if your peers have better career paths than yourself — do you feel intimidated/upset or do you feel happy and are proud of them. Majority of the answers are similar to one another, to summarise; they all will be proud and they see their success as a way to help motivate to improve themselves.
In conclusion, I found that through my interview questions and survey questions; peer pressure is pretty significant in university students although there is big habit with these students to feel a sense of uncertainty towards certain scenarios and feelings.
Jessica Pauline Camille Ablog Mercado 