RELATION BETWEEN THE QUALITY OF FAMILY RELATIONS OF STUDENTS AND SELECTED FIELD OF STUDY

Abstract

Early experience, forms of behaviour that parents expressed towards a child and the family environment in which a child grew up have a significant effect on the formulation of attitudes, needs and interests that later on influence professional orientation and the choice of occupation (Roe, 1956).

The research was conducted on a sample of 448 students from 6 different faculties and attempt to examine the possible connection between the quality of family relationships of the student and  his/her professional interests, evaluated through education type, i.e. through selection of the field of study.  The quality of family relationships were operationalized by the Family quality of interactions scale - KOBI (Vulić - Prtorić, 2004).

The results indicated differences in the expression of family dimensions between students of different faculties. The students of detached, technical sciences have a weaker feeling of having their mother’s acceptance, while the individuals from the group of students with the strongest feeling of rejection from both parents choose the field of psychology for their studies. Our results indicate the existence of differences between the subsamples of students in their experience of the family that go beyond gender differences, and suggest the need for further, more detailed research which could discover deeper, inner initiators that guide an individual’s choice of profession.