Factors Influencing Career Choice of Bioscience and Chemistry Double Major Graduates from Malaysia

The thesis explores the career decisions of a case of graduates who have completed a Bioscience and Chemistry double major award. The study seeks to explore the careers these graduates have entered, and the factors influencing their choice. The study also looked into the extent of the link between the jobs and the disciplines studied. The career path taken was also explored. The findings of the study will enhance better preparation of future graduates for diversified careers. This study used mixed methods to collect and analyse data. The first part of this study used a questionnaire to quantify those factors that influenced the career decisions. The second part of the study employed a qualitative method. Specifically, interviews of eleven graduates selected from the initial quantitative study provided a data source for developing a deeper understanding about their career decisions. The integration of results from the quantitative and qualitative methods provided in-depth answers for the five research questions. The study shows that 30% of graduates surveyed were with discipline-related jobs, 50 % with jobs somewhat related to their curriculum and 20 % with discipline- unrelated jobs. Reasons for choosing non-discipline-related jobs were: being bored with routine laboratory jobs, having low salaries, being confined to the laboratory or lack of job opportunities. Cognitive values were considered to be more important than environmental and affective values in career choice. The factors considered to be most important were opportunity for growth, having interesting jobs, having a considerate boss, and having job responsibility. Financial rewards were ranked 14 out of 32 factors. Influences from family and lecturers were not as important. However employability skills played a role in career choice. The study concluded that career decision-making is a complicated process. The findings of this study may contribute to the literature of career choice of science graduates in Malaysia, and have implications for the practice and future research in the innovative careers of science graduates.