Perceptions of Form Five Students towards a Career in Health Sciences

Abstract

Programmes in the Health Sciences are less pursued by students compared to competative programmes such as medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry. This study aimed to investigate the perception of Form Five students towards a career in Health Sciences in four dimensions including characteristics that are considered as “important” in the selection of a career choice, the level of knowledge in professions within the field of Health Sciences, students’ perception towards a career in the field of Health Sciences and their possible career choice in the field of Health Sciences. This is a cross-sectional study that included 188 students from 10 secondary schools around Kuala Lumpur. The results showed that the respondents prioritized career characteristics that provided “job satisfaction”(97.8%), “job security” (96.8%), “interesting” (95.2%), “helping other people” (92.4%), “doing something good for society” (92.1%) and “high salary” (88.6%). Respondents also reported high level of knowledge for the profession of Medicine (93.1%), Pharmacy (84.0%), Dentistry (76.6%), Nursing (74.8%) and Forensic Science (71.3%). Respondents knew the least about Speech-Language Therapy (28.0%), Audiology (27.0%) and Occupational Therapy (19.3%) professions. Differences in terms of gender and ethnicity were also identified through this study. Respondents’ perception towards the professions were influenced by the level of familiarity, ethnicity and gender. Respondents were found to be less familiar and have misperception towards less-known professions, and this affect respondents’ consideration to pursue these professions as careers. DOI : http://dx.doi.org./10.17576/JSKM-2018-1601-15