Personal and Contextual Factors Associated with Female Students’ Academic Decision-Making in Government Girls’ Colleges in Punjab, Pakistan: A Correlational Study

Abstract

The present study investigated the personal and contextual factors related to informed academic decision making of second year intermediate students of government girls' colleges in Punjab, Pakistan. Contextual domain included familial support and academic autonomy, socio-cultural constraints, economic constraints, and institutional support and career guidance. A quantitative cross sectional correlational design was used. The data were gathered from 833 respondents from eight government girls colleges and the study constructs were measured using composite scales of 6 items each on a 5-point likert scale. Descriptive statistics and two-tailed Pearson product–moment correlations were calculated. The highest construct mean (M = 3.518, SD = 0.968) was for personal and psychological factors, followed by institutional support and career guidance (M = 3.502, SD = 0.974), familial support and academic autonomy (M = 3.497, SD = 0.980), and informed academic decision-making (M = 3.504, SD = 0.998). Personal factors, familial factors and institutional factors were positively related to informed academic decision making, while socio-cultural constraints and economic constraints were negatively related to informed academic decision making, for all p values were less than .001. The results show that the academic choices of female students are a result of the interplay between personal factors, family factors, institutional factors and broader socio-cultural and economic factors