Perceived Career-Choice Autonomy, Family Influence, And Decision Confidence Among Uzbek Adolescents: An Exploratory Cross-Sectional Survey

Abstract

Background: Adolescents make career decisions while balancing interests, perceived abilities and family perspectives. Evidence describing these experiences among Uzbek adolescents remains limited. Objective: To describe career-choice priorities, family involvement and perceived autonomy, and explore associations of choice autonomy and interest alignment with decision confidence. Methods: An exploratory cross-sectional online survey collected responses from 62 adolescents aged 15–18 in Uzbekistan. One entirely blank spreadsheet record was excluded. Fourteen questionnaire items covered career preferences, family influence, perceived freedom, confidence and informational needs. We summarized frequencies and used Spearman rank correlations for exploratory associations between ordinal responses; Fisher’s exact test was used for a restricted two-by-two comparison. Results: Personal interests (49/62; 79.0%), skills (31/62; 50.0%) and salary (27/62; 43.5%) were the most frequently endorsed career-choice considerations. Family support was reported by 43/62 (69.4%); 15/62 (24.2%) said they had changed career plans because of family opinions. High perceived career-choice freedom (4–5/5) was reported by 44/62 (71.0%). Freedom was positively associated with career decision confidence (Spearman ρ = 0.481, p < 0.001), as was alignment with interests (ρ = 0.373, p = 0.0028). In a restricted comparison of participants reporting either changed or unchanged plans, change status was not clearly associated with high freedom (Fisher’s exact p = 0.085). Conclusions: In this nonrepresentative sample, personal interests predominated, while family influence and adolescents’ sense of autonomy coexisted. Observed associations are exploratory and cannot demonstrate causality.