This study examined the relationship between relational motivation, career search effort, and student status among 124 college students. Relational motivation includes motivation from close others (relationally autonomous reasons or RARs) and motivation from oneself (personally autonomous reasons or PARs). The study found that RARs predicted career search effort, but student status and parental status did not predict differences in motivation or effort. Specifically, higher RARs were associated with greater career search effort, but traditional and non-traditional students and parents/non-parents did not differ in their motivation or efforts. The results provide partial support for the hypotheses.

1. Relational and Personal Autonomous Reasons
Driving the Career Search
Kimberley Kavanaugh & Jon Gore, Ph.D. Eastern Kentucky University
Abstract
Introduction
Mechanisms
Methods
Results
Conclusion & Implications
The process or success to which a person
searches for a career is very important for students.
The purpose of this study is to identify the reasons
for which students pursue goals, how much effort
they put into their job searching, and to explore
whether higher levels of relational motivation are
related to job search intensity with the traditional
and non-traditional student. Parental status was
also examined. A multiple regression analysis as
well as two independent samples t-tests were
conducted to obtain the results. The hypotheses
were only partially supported in that career search
effort was predicted by RARs and student status,
but student status did not predict career search
effort and being a parent did not predict higher
levels of RARs.
One of the most important goals for many college
students is obtaining career before or after graduating.
Job search intensity is the concept which refers to the
effort a person puts forth in their career search.
Relational motivation is the type of motivation being
explored and is defined as motivation that includes
close others in your goal pursuit. Gore and Cross (2006)
defined these different types of relational motivation:
• Relationally- Autonomous reasons (RARs) involve
pursuing goals in the interest of a close relationship
• Controlled Reasons (CRs) involve pursuing goals
only in the interest of other people
• Personally Autonomous reasons (PARs)involve
pursuing goals in one’s own interest.
The current study is examining these hypotheses:
1. We predicted that RARs will be more strongly
associated with the career search effort of
nontraditional students than for traditional students
2. We also predicted that Nontraditional students will
have greater career search effort than traditional
students.
3. The final prediction is that among the nontraditional
students, the parents will have higher RARs than the
non-parents.
Participants for this study were 124 undergraduate students at eastern
Kentucky University enrolled in courses where class credit was given for
outside participation points. The age range of the participants was 19 – 55
years old. The questionnaire was offered on SONA, an online research
program designed to administer and gather research data. The
questionnaire is designed to measure relational motivation (including
RARs and PARs) and career search effort of the participants, also
considering student status (traditional and non traditional) and parental
status. Upon analysis, means were calculated for each participant across
the measures for RARs and Career search effort. Analyses were
conducted to determine if their was any relationship between RARs,
student status and career search effort as well as to determine if parental
status was a predictor of levels of RARs present in goal pursuit and if
student status is a predictor of career search effort.
Relationally
Autonomous
Reasons
Controlled
Reasons
Personally
Autonomous
Reasons
Knowledge concerning goal pursuit is important in
many ways. Reasons why people pursue goals can
lead to the development of better equipped and better
informed career services in colleges and in the
community. With a better understanding of what drives
people to achieve and what motivating factors have the
greatest success in attainment of goals, efforts to help
people attain their goals can then be focused on each
individuals specific motivating factor. . By involving
these close others directly with the individual actually
searching for the career or pursuing the goal, it can lead
to more desirable outcomes. Since RARs have been
found to predict career search effort, career services at
colleges can urge students to involve family members or
close friends in their efforts in looking for jobs upon
graduation. Job fairs could be designed around the
student and their close friends or family with the goal of
creating more relational motivation towards the career
search for students. The desired outcome is more
motivation, more effort, and hopefully more success in
their career search!
The results of the regression analysis show
that 5% of the variance in career search effort
can be accounted for by RARs and only .2%
of the variance in career search effort can be
accounted for by student status. The results
of this analysis were significant and in the
expected direction. RARs predicted career
search effort. R2= .05, F(1,122)=6.41, p<.05,
β=.223.
The independent sample t-tests conducted
did not produce statistically significant results.
Parental status, specifically being a parent,
did not predict higher levels of RARs. In
addition, student status did not predict career
search effort.
“For Us”
“For Them”
“For Me”